This post was written by guest blogger Erin Connor, Portfolio Manager for Critical Human Needs, Cisco Corporate Affairs and Cisco Foundation

Shortly after joining Cisco's Corporate Social Responsibility team last August, I attended a new hire orientation and was introduced to Cisco's People Deal:Connect everything, innovate everywhere, benefit everyone.It sounded great, although I admit that I wasn't quite sure what it meant in practice. Six months later, however, I have seen exactly what our People Deal means here at Cisco, and how it is demonstrated by employees across departments and sites around the world.

The refugee crisis in the Middle East and Europe marks one of the biggest and most complex humanitarian emergencies of our time. Eleven million people -half of Syria's pre