Team,

Cisco is proud to announce the top 20 finalists from the first annual IoT World Forum Young Women's Innovation Grand Challenge!

In collaboration with our key partners, this challenge enabled us to connect with over 1500 girls between the ages of 13-18, located in 171 countries across the world. We received approximately 400 completed submissions for connecting mobile devices to the internet using IoT technologies in multiple fields including education, healthcare, manufacturing, energy, retail, transportation, mining, and smart cities.

Out of all the ideas submitted, our pool of judges have determined the top 20 finalists who they felt demonstrated the most original, creative, and feasible ideas. And the finalists are:

Inspiring Young Girls to Embrace STEM

The goal of this challenge is to encourage young woman to learn about Internet of Things technologies early in their education and inspire them to pursue a career in STEM. The Internet of Things has the opportunity to change Cities, organizations and people's quality of life, and with this challenge it also provides a new way to bring more fun with and exposure to STEM beyond a high school math or science class. Along with our key partners, we were able to reach out to young women around the world and help them envision new and innovative solutions that are feasible both now and in the future. This is just one more effort in the important journey to having women increase their participation in technology fields.

Announcing the Winner

We have one more round of submissions due from our finalists and then we'll make our decision on the winners. Winners will be announced July 30, 2015. Prizes include a 1st place prize of$20,000 (1 recipient); a 2nd place prize of$10,000 (4 recipients); and a 3rd place prize of$5,000 (5 recipients). The final submission round includes a detailed presentation of their proposal as well as a video introducing the entrant and their innovating idea.

Thank you all for your continued support during the IoT Women's Innovation Grand Challenge.

Best,

Inbar