SAP Sales Academy participant from Slovenia

[Former Member]

 
This year is the first time that SAP Sales Academy program is available also in Slovenia where the chosen candidate will get the opportunity of his lifetime. He will attend an intensive, accelerated program for recent university graduates, 6 months of hands-on training, shadowing and mentoring by Senior Account Executives in the candidates’ home location interspersed with 3 months of classroom training on-site in California. More than 30 candidates applied for this great opportunity and the candidate who showed the greatest passion, knowledge and positive energy at the right time is Davorin Pandel. If you want to know more about Davorin you can read the interview below.

Please share a bit about yourself - name, university and personal background - where you are from, family, and anything interesting that we should know about you.

My name is Davorin Pandel (27) and I originate from a small town in the northern Slovenia called Ravne na Koroškem. During past seven years I spent most of my time in Maribor, Slovenia’s second largest city, where I studied. I finished a 5-year Masters-equivalent engineering degree in Computer science and information technology at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Maribor, Slovenia. During my IT-studies I very soon realized how useless technology can be if it is not utilized by everyday people and if they are not able to truly benefit from it. This is why I enrolled in my second, parallel study programme E-Business at the Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Maribor, which I am finishing right now. This program really helped me understand that the questions “what” and “why” are at least as important as “how” something should be done. It gave me the ability to think more strategically but it also allowed me to practically familiarize myself with industry’s leading IT solutions, such as SAP ERP.  Being quite independent ever since my 18^th year when I moved from home to student dorm I am grateful to my family who have always supported me and have never pushed me into anything but rather let me decide about my future on my own. Although it took a bit longer to finish my both studies as opposed to only one I also managed to do two internships in very good IT-companies during this time. 

Which was the last SAP offering  that you took advantage of? What makes you passionate about pursuing an education or career in technology?

I have participated one-day assessment day workshop in Warsaw, Poland, which was a part of the recruitment process for a wonderful opportunity SAP offered this year, called SAP Sales Academy. It is a program that allows young professionals to sharpen the practical knowledge, needed in everyday tough business conditions on the market. It sounded as an amazing opportunity for me so I applied. Working on a business case with fellow students was simply an amazing experience.

And what makes me passionate about pursuing my career in technology? I have always beenthe guy friends asked for recommendations on things like which laptop to buy or how to use some specific functionality of certain software. Helping with advice became my hobby. So I naturally realized how I am not only fond of technology but also how I like (maybe even more) finding ways to explain technical terms to people who are not interested in them. And I want to pursue my future in technology because its focus is moving away from specifications to how it can contribute making people’s everyday better.

What inspires you about technology right now?

I am currently really enthusiastic to see how the mere specifications of software and hardware products have moved behind their sole purpose. You never actually buy a digital camera because of its “100-million” sensor but, say because you believe it will help you capture the feelings of a certain moment and save them for you to be able to recall them later in life.

What gets you excited when you think about the future of technology or how do you think technology can change the world?

I think that this shift from specification-driven to purpose-driven technology will have many benefits. Technology will help solve the most difficult issues the modern society faces today. Environmentally friendlier world will be based on new technology. It has already and it will help even more to enable access to the best education there is for practically anyone willing to learn. Organizations will want to remain competitive and technology will help optimize their business processes. And all in all technology will continue allowing people to do less repetitive, monotonous tasks and be more creative and alive.

When you look ahead, what do youlook forward to about your career the most? What impact do you hope to have on the world?

I want to continue helping people realize how to utilize all this abundance of technology there is in a way that will simplify their everyday so that they will have more time to be creative and deal with more important and strategic things.Technology has to be seen as a bridge that brings people together and I want to become better to contribute as much as I can.