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Former Member

Wow What A Way To Learn!

Imagine 35 SAP professionals, 4 SAP Mentors, alumni and students supported by SAP experts working continuously for 30 hours to build prototypes to address different aspects of the Victorian bushfires.  This is what the SAP Innojam is all about.  The SAP Innojam is conducted in different countries each year and this year the event was conducted at Victoria University’s Graduate School of Business. 

The event began one cold Sunday morning.  The participants formed themselves into teams which were composed of technical and non-technical members.  They spent next 5 hours learning about Design Thinking and how this methodology could be applied to building solutions related to the bushfires.   I was more thinking about how I could use Design Thinking in a university classroom.  The Design Thinking phase was followed by SAP experts providing overviews of the available technologies that could be used to build the solution. 

Then the fun began. The teams spent the next 13 hours learning, experimenting and building their solution.  Some of the team members did not get any sleep, while others slept in nooks throughout the campus and others preferred their own bed.  Late Monday, the teams had 6 minutes to explain and demonstrate their solution to a panel of judges and the winning team was announced.

Four current Victoria University students (sponsored by SAP), two staff members and three alumni took part in the event.  One of the students, Stevanic Artana, was on the winning team.  Another  student summed up his experience:

“When I started, I had very little understanding of HANA technology and it was my first time I worked with such exceptionally qualified SAP professionals.  It has truly inspired me to strive and work harder to achieve my dream of becoming a SAP Mentor.  As I’ve gone through this seminar.  It was really like peeling the layers off the onion.  I have a deeper understanding of the functionality and working of SAP-HANA and of how useful it is in the present competitive world.   I am very obliged and thankful for accepting me as a part of this program.” Phisuthisak Nitirachadanon

The students were highly motivated due to the profile of the event  in the SAP ecosystem with many references to it through the various social media channels.  A student, Jelvie Grech, and alumni, Rohini Sreedhar have written separate blogs on the SAP Community Network (SCN) about their Innojam experiences.  Recently their blogs were highlighted on the front page of the SCN site. 

Links to the blogs are:

Jelvie Grech, “An InnoJammer Who Can’t Code”   Click

Rohini Sreedhar, “My first experience at SAP InnoJam (Melbourne 2012)”   Click

The SAP Community Network gets more than 1.2 million visits each month which is great profile for the Innojam event at Victoria University and the students’ involvement.

Some other mentions of the SAP InnoJam

http://www.sap.com/australia/press.epx?pressid=19486

http://www.insidesap.com.au/_blog/SAP_Forum_%E2%80%93_SAUG_Summit_2012/post/InnoJam_to_feature_Desig...

http://scn.sap.com/community/events/innojam/blog/2012/07/24/join-the-first-sap-external-innojam-with...

http://scn.sap.com/community/events/innojam/blog/2012/08/28/staying-awake-to-fight-bushfires-at-sap-...

http://www.insidesap.com.au/_blog/News/post/%E2%80%98Where%E2%80%99s_Wally_Now%E2%80%99_app_takes_ou...

So why universities should get involved with the SAP Innojam?

Firstly by hosting the event a university can raise its profile and enable the event to be conducted in state of the art facilities.  Staff can experience some of the latest SAP technologies, strengthen their relationships with SAP and industry, and learn about Design Thinking.  The students certainly benefit by accessing the latest SAP technologies through a problem based learning approach.

You should plan to attend the SAP Innojam closest to you or even better encourage SAP to host it at your university.

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