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Cisco's I-Prize Innovation Competition goes to "Life Account" Team

Breakthrough:
Titled "Life Account," the idea is to gather info about users through connected devices as well as through the virtual world.

Company:
Cisco, United States

The Story:
Cisco's I-Prize Innovation Competition goes to

Awarding it's second I-Prize of $250,000 to a team of five university students from Mexico, has gained Cisco a potential billion-dollar business idea titled: "Life Account." The idea is to gather info about users through connected devices as well as through the virtual world.

The I-Prize, launched in January, consisted of four categories: the future of work, the connected life, new ways to learn and the future of entertainment. The winning entry was submitted under the Connected Life category and the concept combines social networking with the physical world to create one view of a users "life."

The winning team, announced on Jun-29-2010, consisted of Darius Lau, Lizett Michel Gallegos, Claudia Alexandra Vargas Prieto, Guillermo Antonio Araiza Torres and Juan Rodrigo Huerta Manning from the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM).

Using an open innovation format, Cisco received more than 800 ideas from 3,000 participants in 156 countries. Reviewed by Cisco executives and industry leaders, the winning team was chosen for their technological innovation and the potential business opportunity for Cisco.

Team leader Darius Lau stated, "The I-Prize experience has been life-changing. After hearing about the competition, we formed our team and started brainstorming ways to bridge the physical world with our virtual worlds. The forward thinking of Cisco to foster such an open, collaborative environment for innovation, has led to enormous opportunities for our team. The Cisco I-Prize platform helped our team craft and execute on our idea, but also enabled us to present our winning concept in a state-of-the-art manner using video collaboration to better articulate our concept. For this opportunity we are truly appreciative."

It's interesting to note that once again, the team approach, as championed by IdeaConnection, has resulted in a winning concept.

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