Earlier this 12 months, Santiago, Chile, grew to become the hub for a important dialog on the way forward for digital skilling.
Fueled by a spirit of innovation and collaboration, the 2026 Companion Convention introduced collectively 130 companions, educators, and trade leaders. Collectively, they reaffirmed a strong shared imaginative and prescient: Cisco Networking Academy is greater than an academic program—it’s an engine driving financial growth and social mobility throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.
Cisco Networking Academy is addressing the broader expertise panorama throughout Latin America by increasing entry to high-quality digital schooling and profession alternatives. This system’s intensive group of companions, academies, and instructors ensures a gentle pipeline of expert college students able to deal with the evolving calls for of the expertise sector head-on.
Via robust partnerships with Academy Help Facilities (ASCs) and Teacher Coaching Facilities (ITCs), Cisco Networking Academy permits native organizations and establishments to develop each affect and attain, empowering learners with in-demand expertise in networking, cybersecurity, synthetic intelligence (AI), and different rising applied sciences.
The objective of the convention was clear: to strengthen partnerships, share cutting-edge product updates, and reinforce Cisco’s function as a trusted advisor within the schooling sector.
The success of the Networking Academy will depend on robust relationships with Academy Help Facilities (ASCs) and Teacher Coaching Facilities (ITCs), who work tirelessly to make sure that the curriculum stays related and accessible.
A basis for sustainable development
Companions are the center of this system. By offering operational, technical, and promotional assist, these organizations guarantee a gentle pipeline of expert college students who’re able to construct profitable careers within the tech area. All through the convention, discussions centered on how the Cisco Networking Academy can proceed to empower these organizations to recruit extra academies and develop their native affect.
Fostering group, data sharing, and collaboration stays a precedence. By equipping instructors with the most recent coaching and certification preparation, this system ensures that the standard of schooling stays excessive, no matter a pupil’s location.
Innovating for the long run: AI, quantum, and cybersecurity
The expertise panorama adjustments every day, and the curriculum should sustain. A serious spotlight of the convention was the give attention to rising applied sciences.
Classes explored how the Cisco Networking Academy is integrating AI, quantum computing, and industrial networking into the training portfolio. These applied sciences are the instruments that can outline the following decade of the workforce. By positioning the curriculum on the intersection of those improvements, this system prepares college students to navigate the complexities of Trade 4.0. Whether or not via game-based studying for subnetting or superior cybersecurity workshops, the objective is to show complicated ideas into actionable expertise that result in significant careers.
Past the classroom, the convention highlighted the continued dedication to our mission: connecting the unconnected and shutting the digital expertise hole. Native authorities and regional companions gathered to debate how the Cisco Networking Academy permits companions to develop the abilities required to develop nations, industries, and economies.
Expertise acts as a catalyst for fairness. When college students are supplied with the appropriate instruments and the appropriate instructors to information them, the method goes past educating technical configurations; it entails constructing a greater future for whole communities. From Mexico to Chile, alumni are utilizing their new expertise, certifications, and expertise to land jobs, internships, and educational alternatives, turning studying into lasting affect.
Celebrating companion excellence
Along with the way forward for the Cisco Networking Academy program in LATAM, we have been honored to have a good time the endless dedication of our companions throughout the convention’s award ceremony.
Chile’s Instituto Profesional INACAP was acknowledged with the celebrated Golden Bridge award for its unwavering dedication to pupil success and curriculum integration, setting a brand new benchmark for excellence. Following the identical spirit of innovation, we awarded the Escola de Comunicações do Exército Brasileiro in Brazil and the Universidad Latina de Costa Rica with the Be the Bridge award, celebrating their management in scaling high-quality tech coaching.
Whereas these companions have been capable of stand on stage and obtain their awards in Santiago, our gratitude extends far past the convention partitions. An extra thirty academies throughout Latin America obtained the Premier or Premier Plus recognition this 12 months. Additionally it is value noting the excellent efficiency throughout the area, particularly in Brazil, which secured a complete of 18 Premiere Awards, greater than double that of some other nation and surpassing Nigeria, which at the moment has seven.
The complete checklist of Premier and Premier Plus Companions was launched in January and is obtainable on netacad.com.
Although they might not be part of us in particular person, their tireless efforts to bridge the digital divide and empower their native communities are the driving pressure behind our program’s success within the area. Each companion, academy, and teacher performs a important function in opening doorways of alternative, altering lives, and single-handedly constructing the following technology of expertise to thrive in a digital world.
Future centered: stronger collectively
The convention was greater than an occasion; it was a bridge between previous achievements and future ambitions, connecting trade and academia, expertise and alternative, imaginative and prescient and motion. The Cisco Networking Academy stays dedicated to main schooling, making certain that alternatives proceed to develop for learners throughout the area.
The dedication of the companions who attended the occasion in Chile highlights the eagerness and dedication driving this program. Collectively, these efforts are shaping the way forward for the digital workforce.
Be part of the Cisco Networking Academy Group at the moment. Empower college students, join with trade leaders, and assist form the way forward for tech schooling throughout Latin America.
