SAP Pre-Sales Academy Students put their skills to the test for a good cause
Technology is changing the world at an ever increasing pace, touching almost every part of our lives, our communities, our homes, and our kids. Many of our schools are also just beginning to explore the true potential technology can offer for teaching and learning, and SAP is at the forefront of helping them do this better.
Computers For Youth (CFY), SAP nonprofit partner, is an organization dedicated to helping low-income students harness the power of technology and digital learning to improve educational outcomes. With the help of dedicated employees from the SAP Pre-Sales Academy, Cassio Christianini, SAP HANA Solution Engineer in Brazil, and Kyle Low, Presales Associate in SAP HANA & Analytics in CANADA, CFY will be able to drive effective results using their data and positively impact the lives of the thousands of students they serve every year.
SAP Lumira is the Answer for CFY
CFY employs a free digital learning platform, PowerMyLearning, offering thousands of the best digital learning activities from all over the web and enabling educators to tailor activities to meet the specific learning needs of their students. As CFY’s platform expands to more schools, one of their key challenges has become managing and utilizing their data.
“CFY was on the verge of becoming a very data heavy organization and needed a way to explore and analyze their data in a more meaningful way,” Cassio said. “SAP Lumira was the right tool to enable them to make sense of their facts and figures, and thanks to the geo-capability function, CFY could easily visualize how each of their locations was performing and identify trends and patterns.”
SAP Lumira made it possible for CFY to effectively gauge the effectiveness of their programs, pinpoint strengths and weaknesses, and ultimately improve the Digital Learning Program to better serve students, teachers, and families.
Cassio and Kyle took on the data challenge in a phased approach. The ultimate goal was to ensure the smooth implementation of SAP Lumira by CFY and provide them with tutorials and the know-how on using the product effectively.
“Working with the SAP team helped us visualize how we could use data in a whole new way at the organization—motivating and improving our work on a daily basis”, said Courtney Dastis-Galvin, CFY’s IT coordinator.
Turning Learning into Action
The SAP Pre-Sales Academy, led by Mary Lange’s team, including Santiago Duque, took on the CFY project as part of the 6 month learning program our SAP Presales Academy students go through, to enable participants to apply their learning in a real-life scenario - with a customer. They worked with the SAP Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) team to identify nonprofit, CFY, who had recently received a donation of SAP Lumira through the CSR technology donation program for nonprofits.
“The collaboration between SAP employee volunteers and CFY not only serves to enhance an organization’s operational and strategic excellence in the nonprofit sector, but also cultivate talent and provide real experience for SAP pre-sales academy students. Volunteering in this capacity provided both Cassio and Kyle with a good opportunity to interact with SAP users in a safe environment and gain the necessary hands on experience crucial to their roles.
”I began to understand what it was like to be in a customer facing role with real life challenges,” said Kyle. “Engaging with CFY allowed me to apply the knowledge I acquired in my training.”
The rewards were also felt on a personal level. “You can really see how CFY is impacting society and education. It’s great to experience SAP solutions in action, and witness firsthand SAP software helping the world run better,” said Cassio.
