Alex Goryachev is the managing director of Cisco's Global Co-Innovation Centers and author of the new book Fearless Innovation. Alex and Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation founder talk about a variety of innovation initiatives going on at Cisco. We talk about the power of the individual innovator to drive corporate change and the many benefits of creating a strong ecosystem of partners outside your organization. Before we start this week's episode, I wanted to let you know that we recorded a number of interviews before the Corona virus disruption started. Wanted to give some context before we jump into some of these shows. Thank you very much for listening. Being part of the Inside Outside innovation community.  We look forward to talking more about the disruption of the Corona virus and other things. Stay safe, be well. Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast that brings you the best and the brightest in the world of startups and innovation. I'm your host Brian Ardinger, founder of InsideOutside.IO, a provider of research, events, and consulting services that help innovators and entrepreneurs build better products, launch new ideas, and compete in a world of change and disruption. Each week we'll give you a front row seat to the latest thinking tools, tactics, and trends in collaborative innovation. Let's get started. Brian Ardinger:  Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger, and as always, I have another amazing guest. Today we have Alex Goryachev. Alex is the managing director of Cisco's Global Co-Innovation Centers and author of a new book called Fearless Innovation: Going beyond the buzzword to continuously drive growth, improve your bottom line, and enact change. Welcome Alex to the show. Alex Goryachev: Thanks for having me. I'm really excited about being here today. Brian Ardinger: I'm excited to have you on the show. Cisco's one of those companies that you hear over and over again about the types of things that they're doing when it comes to innovation. Let's talk a little bit about what's your role at Cisco and what are some of the amazing things that you're doing when it comes to the world of innovation? Alex Goryachev: When I think about Cisco, you are absolutely right. There's a reason why we are world's best workplace. To me, it comes down to the fact that we have so many innovators in the company. I'm a bit of a matchmaker, I think internally, trying to ensure that our innovators know each other and they're able to connect them, bring their ideas to life. We do have about 74,000 employees in the company, and I would say, each one of them is an innovator. And when we connect, the magic happens. So that's on the employee side. And then connecting to the outside world is another priority of mine. And we have a number of co-innovation centers around the world. Getting our employees and our teams plugged in and working together with universities and other ecosystem partners is another part of my role. Brian Ardinger:  Let's talk a little bit about what Cisco's co-innovation center is. We hear a lot about hackathons. We hear a lot about corporations that are trying to do startup corporate matchmaking and that, what makes your program different? And tell us a little bit about the co-innovation centers. Alex Goryachev: When we think about going innovation centers, they exist in different parts of the world. For example, we have centers in Tokyo, we have them in Australia, we have them in London. When we think about that flavor, that flavor changes depending on the geography. Because what we do well in one country is not necessarily what the need is in another one.  I think what's really important and what is the common thing is our ability to listen to our ecosystem and then figuring out joint solutions. And when I say solutions, I use the term broadly, right. It could be a joint research with the university, could be an internship program, could be a way for us to p