At first it was Verne's Phileas Fogg, then Monty Python's Michael Palin, and now it is Telefonica's Hugo Scagnetti to join the ranks of those brave adventurers attempting to go around the world in 80 days. However, there is no wager from the Reform Club, or a BBC TV series in the works here, but rather a noble cause to raise funds for tissue regeneration stem cell research for children. Cisco is proud to join with Telefonica as a sponsor of the Globalrider 80 project, an around-the-world technology "solo rider" adventure that Hugo will undertake on a special "always connected" motorbike outfitted with IoT and m2m technologies which will broadcast multimedia content and telemetry data in real time.

The technology onboard the motorbike is impressive. Telefonica relies on its Smartm2m platform to provide M2M Global SIM connectivity to the motorbike which has onboard instruments and devices for telemetry, remote eHealth and Wellness monitoring (e.g., connected gloves, biometry), local Wi-Fi, vehicle and pilot geolocalisation (e.g., asset and vehicle tracking), and for uploading automated geo-referenced multimedia files from the videos and images captured by Hugo on his travels. Cisco