Tempe, Arizona USA: Two graduate students of Indian origin from Arizona State University have secured first place in Net Impact’s 2025 Community Innovation Challenge, an international contest conducted in partnership with Cisco to promote technology-led social impact initiatives.
Mahima Subramaniyan and Devagna Jadeja, who are enrolled at the Thunderbird School of Global Management, earned top honors for their project titled DineLink. Their proposal was awarded the grand prize of $10,000 for outlining a $12 million long-term connectivity initiative aimed at improving internet access across the Navajo Nation.
Currently, only around 33 percent of people living in this region, the largest Native American reservation in the United States, have dependable internet connectivity. This stands in sharp contrast to the national connectivity rate, which is close to 97 percent.
The Community Innovation Challenge encourages student teams to create tailored corporate social responsibility programs by utilizing Cisco’s technologies and services. The objective is to deliver tangible benefits to communities while also generating sustainable business value.
Subramaniyan and Jadeja described the competition as a rewarding and impactful journey. They expressed gratitude to Net Impact and Cisco for offering a platform to refine and present their concept. The duo also credited their Cisco mentor, Sean Cherry, along with Arizona State University student Ethan Tacheene from the Navajo Nation, whose personal insights played a key role in shaping the proposal.
According to the winners, the experience reinforced their dedication to community-focused innovation, and they hope the initiative will serve as a significant move toward closing the digital connectivity gap.
The second-place award of $5,000 was claimed by HealthHorizons, a team led by Priya Rao from the University of Connecticut, along with Julia Kuang of Wellesley College and Grace Chen of Swarthmore College. Their proposal focused on improving health care access in Greene County, Alabama.
Third place, which carried a prize of $2,500, was awarded to OncoALERT. The team, led by Dr. Jayanti Kumari and Sweta Pandey from the Translational Health Science and Technology Institute, presented a plan that integrates AI-enabled oral cancer screening tools with Cisco’s networking solutions to enable remote diagnostics in rural parts of India.
Net Impact stated that additional information about the finalist teams and their respective projects can be accessed through the organization and Cisco.
