Per Samuelsson, CEO, Cisco Sweden

Why have you taken this initiative?
Cisco is the global technology leader that has made the Internet work since 1984, and we feel a special responsibility to do everything we can to support society and contribute knowledge and technology in these difficult times. On March 22, Cisco pledged more than $2 billion to support both global and local initiatives around the world to combat COVID-19.

We believe that our knowledge and experience of the global internet infrastructure, teleworking and cybersecurity is a contribution that is essential for society to make the most of the opportunities offered by digitalization. We live in a time when the internet is becoming more important than ever before.

What do you want to achieve?
Our aim is to ensure that as much of Swedish society as possible continues to function, despite the fact that more and more of those working in both the private and public sectors need to do so from home. We also want to help make it easier for society as a whole to make that transition.

What do you offer specifically?
Cisco offers all Swedish public and private organizations free access to our collaboration and video calling tool Webex to enable effective collaboration no matter where you are. Webex is the obvious choice for video calls with particularly high requirements, such as critical use in healthcare, for remote teaching, or for the first virtual G20 meeting, for example. As a concrete example of remote learning, the Italian government has recently decided to introduce Webex in 5,000 schools, with the first virtual lesson held in early March 2020.

Being able to work effectively and safely from home is also very important. Across society, we have now started to work remotely more than ever, and we also see that the number of security incidents related to cybercrime has increased very sharply in recent weeks. Cisco therefore also offers free access to several of our security solutions that make it possible to work safely anywhere, anytime and on any device.

We have also activated a global Cisco team to quickly respond to private and public sector needs for network equipment and internet connectivity required to fight COVID-19.