Data-driven insights fuel the most innovative companies of our time. And executives know it. According to Cisco's 2018 CDO Thought Leadership Brief, "an overwhelming 97.2% of executives report that their companies are investing in building or launching big data and AI initiatives."

However, the road to pervasive insights isn't cheap- making it difficult for nonprofits, who focus on benefitting humanity with every dollar and resource at their disposal, to invest in analytics- no matter how many times over the investment would repay itself. The immediate needs of those they serve just can't wait.

Take Akshara Foundation, for example, A Public Charitable Trust based in India committed to providing foundational reading and mathematical skills to pre- and primary school aged children. Since 2000, Akshara has positively impacted the lives of 900,000 kids- many of whom wouldn't have attended school without the trust's services.

In February of this year, a team of data scientists led by Sourav Banerjee at Cisco began working with Akshara to extract meaningful insights from the trust's data to further amplify Akshara's impact. And they haven't stopped.

Today, after months of pilots with numerous nonprofits around the world, I'm thrilled to announce the launch of Cisco's Data Science & AI for Good program.

Interested nonprofits may reach out to the program administrators via [email protected].