Chris Reeves talks about Cisco’s CDA program

An interview with Chris Reeves, EMEA, Country Digital Acceleration (CDA) Director, Cisco, a multinational technology company that designs, manufactures, and sells networking equipment, software, and services, to talk about its CDA program and its benefits.

Techx: Please tell us more about Cisco’s CDA program, the objective and the outcomes so far?

Chris: Cisco has developed the concept of Country Digital Acceleration to stimulate global digitization, by creating long-term collaborations with governments in countries to strengthen digital research and education, stimulate digital entrepreneurship, accelerate innovation, develop new economic clusters and improve national infrastructure. 

The program actively invests in strategic programs that align to national digitization agendas, by utilizing our platforms and expertise to form the bridge between a country’s digital ambitions and the benefits of a digitally inclusive future. 

What makes the CDA program exceptional is that it is focused on understanding country-specific priorities and needs, and then creating proofs-of-concept aligned to digital agendas. 

The CDA Program is currently active in 50 countries around the world with over 1500 active or completed projects, on smarter transport, smart cities, eHealth, cybersecurity, education, and other digital priorities. All of these projects are unique in the sense that they aim to solve specific challenges using the latest technologies and business solutions.  

The CDA Program has a significant presence in the Middle East and Africa region where we are currently working alongside national leadership, industry, and academia across many countries in the region, to drive partnerships that contribute to the digital economy and empower generations to harness the power of technology. 

For instance, in the UAE, as part of Cisco’s commitment to support the UAE’s transition to a digital economy, we expanded the framework of Cisco’s CDA program in 2022 to enhance work models between government entities and private companies through designing and launching several key initiatives. These all contribute to boosting the UAE’s digital transformation vision and help accelerate the development of the nation’s digital economy – with sustainability focus as one of its key pillars. The program was firstly launched here in 2018, with the aim to support the UAE’s leading vision through harnessing the power of technology to accelerate digital transformation, stimulate innovation, and drive the development of digital skills. 

Techx: Can u give us a couple of use cases where the CDA program has had the most impact?

Chris: We are living through difficult times. There are economic challenges across many nations, there is conflict displacing refugees and there is the global challenge of climate change. Despite this, at Cisco, we are optimistic about the future. The reason is that we understand the power of the new technologies that are coming to the market and Cisco’s CDA program has proved that technology can bring relief and solutions to some of those challenges:

In Italy, we are working closely with ENEL Group to transform and digitise Italy’s national power grid to make it fully ready for millions of renewable energy generators at the edge.

In the UK, we have been working with National Rail to use digitisation to continually increase the capacity, efficiency, and safety of the rail network.

In the Netherlands, we are working with the Port of Rotterdam to help the port get ready for autonomous and cleaner shipping. We are partnering with The Port to create a “Digital Twin” of the port that will help drive increased productivity, safety, and control.

In Germany, for years we have been partnering with Deutsche Bahn to transform some of their buses into fully connected mobile health clinics. We did this together to allow Deutsche Bahn to take health care to remote rural underserved communities. We used this innovative connected, mobile platform to help respond to the COVID pandemic and more recently we used it to provide health services to Ukrainian refugees in Germany.

There are thousands of examples like these of how Cisco’s CDA is providing outcomes to global challenges through the deployment of Cisco’s solutions in innovative environments.    

Techx: How open are the governments on digitization discussions and how willing are they to invest, over and above CDA’s investments? 

Chris: The governments of the countries where Cisco’s CDA program is active all have multi-year digitization strategies. They fully understand that the adoption of technology will provide the next phase of economic growth. They also understand that digitization will provide the answers to a lot of their current challenges, whether that be urbanisation, environmental challenges, or underserved communities. They also recognise that they can not deliver this on their own and they need to partner with world-leading technology companies such as Cisco to deliver the required outcome.

Through the program, we are not “donating” money to good causes; rather we are “investing” funds for growth and better outcomes. In our experience, governments are keen to attract investments rather than donations as they fully understand that successful investments will fund further investments. 

This is the model of Cisco’s CDA program. It is built on trusted relationships with governments, businesses and academia. CDA has been running for 8 years now and the trust we have built by delivering outcomes has enhanced governmental relationships and allows us to invest further. 

Techx: Can you talk about use cases from the Middle East region in terms of the CDA program implementation and its impact?

Chris: Let me share with you just a few examples that showcase how we can use state-of-the-art technology to address key needs in the Middle East and Africa. 

In Saudi Arabia, Cisco has been contributing to the Kingdom’s transition to a digital economy hence supporting the realization of the Saudi Vision 2030. Till date, we have more than 20 active or completed digitization projects under the CDA program supporting key pillars like digital government empowerment, tourism, and hospitality, smart and connected communities, cybersecurity, and others. 

An example in education; Cisco is working very closely with King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) by powering the intelligent network infrastructure of KAUST across campuses. Since its inception, KAUST has pioneered a digital-first approach, supported by Cisco’s technologies, redefining the way that campus residents, faculty members and students connect, collaborate, and conduct research. As a smart city, KAUST houses 5,500 residents, a marine sanctuary, museum, and a state-of-the-art research facility, all connected through advanced technologies to enable inclusive and engaging learning environments for students. 

Under the scope of our CDA program in Egypt, we built a telehealth project, contributed to a smart campus for a leading public university, and initiated collaboration between three ministries to help enable remote court hearings. In addition, we worked with the Egyptian government to equip 20 vans with technologies to deliver citizen services in rural areas. 

During the pandemic, our CDA team deployed 40 telehealth clinics to enable remote consultation and deliver vital healthcare services to remote and isolated patients. We also helped the Ministry of Higher Education put in place an e-learning platform for universities and enabled 5,000 secondary school teachers to run online education via the Cisco Webex platform. 

In the UAE, under the CDA program, we have collaborated with Mall of the Emirates, owned, and operated by Majid Al Futtaim, to bring customers an immersive, digitalized, and personalized shopping experience that introduces a sense of inclusive belonging through the launch of the “Store of the Future”. The initiative was the first of its kind in Dubai to offer an exclusive chance to interact with the unique, fully digital, and physical concept store, elevating the traditional shopping experience by incorporating digital retail to introduce customers to a futuristic shopping journey. 

Techx: You have already covered 50 countries so far and over 1500 active or completed projects, what’s next?

Chris: The Purpose of Cisco is to “Power an Inclusive Future for All”. Cisco’s CDA program is one of the ways we are delivering this purpose to the market through innovative projects. In terms of what is next for CDA, we want to deliver more projects to drive economic growth and digital inclusion for all. 

We also want to be an important platform for co-innovation alongside academia and major industrial players in each of our CDA countries. We continue to test the boundaries of our capacity to innovate and are actively working on projects that use Open Roaming, AI, Quantum Computing, Digital Twins in the fields of Industry 4.0 and Critical National Infrastructure.

The other major area of coordination is the integration of our technology investments with our investments in digital skills training. Our program leverages Cisco Networking Academy – the longest-running skills-to-jobs program in the world – to help address the growing digital skills gap by training millions of new learners with next-generation cybersecurity, networking, and software development skills. We are also partnering with governments to help protect countries, organisations, and individuals from cyber-attacks by leveraging Cisco’s world-leading cybersecurity portfolio.