Young SAP professionals from the Mobility and Technology Innovation Platform teams attended the SAP Academic Conference Americas in Milwaukee, WI on February 22, 2013. They mingled with the 300 professors attending the conference, informally engaging with professors to show SAP’s new apps and discuss how SAP’s analytic, mobile, and HANA solutions are changing business. They also shared their stories of how they gained an opportunity to work at SAP. Check out their comments and stories below!
l. to r.: Mike Fraim and Josh Hurst of the SAP Mobility team, and Shalini Pachineela of the Technology Innovation Platform team.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
As a recent graduate (July 2011) of Central Michigan University, a long time SAP University Alliances member school, it was an honor and a pleasure to interact with so many SAP focused professors. The thing that really struck me was how many of the professors I spoke with were ready and eager to bring SAP’s newer product sets like mobile and in-memory with HANA into their classrooms. There was clearly a strong interest around our innovation platform that was apparent in virtually every interaction. As someone with firsthand experience in the power of having SAP’s brand on a resume coming fresh out of college, it was nice to see how much energy and excitement there is among professors who plan to bring insights from the conference back to the classroom and build the next wave of SAP ready graduates.
As far as I’m concerned, building a skill set in college around innovative categories like mobile, analytics, and in-memory is one of the most powerful things a student can do to differentiate themselves as they’re entering the workforce. When coupled with the vendor specific knowledge of a strong brand like SAP, these students have the opportunity to build a resume that will flabbergast recruiters as new graduates and provide them the skills necessary to provide an immediate impact. Look out for these students coming from the University Alliance programs, because they’re coming full force with deep SAP knowledge and a ferocious appetite for innovation.
Thanks again for including me in your event- it was a blast reconnecting with the world of academia and chatting mobility with so many professors!
Josh Hurst, Mobility Solutions Principal
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
At the SAP Academic Conference I had the chance to speak to a lot of professors about Mobility Innovation.
The professors were really excited to see the ‘new’ SAP, getting to understand SAP’s innovative technologies, which many mentioned were a focus of their students. They liked how SAP has made the right moves to invest in the hottest technologies that can help to attract younger people to the organization. The professors loved hearing about the SAP Sales Graduate Academy that I went through. They thought it was a great way for top graduates to get into SAP and begin their careers.
Many professors I spoke with thought the mobile app that Dave Haseman and Ross Hightower of UW-Milwaukee created was excellent and gave them the opportunity to teach their students about Mobile and how to develop apps. They were really excited about the new University Mobility Innovation Center, which will give students a great opportunity to learn the technology and work with some of the biggest companies in the world, potentially creating job opportunities.
I also shared with professors that I really believe SAP provides recent graduates the best opportunity in the industry to grow and develop into strong business professionals. Coming from a Business Management education, I had taken management, human resources, financial, and marketing classes, but none really seemed to take precedent over the others. This left me kind of confused coming out of school as to where I wanted to go with my career. I came into SAP as an intern and was immediately able to use some of my skills that I had learned in each part of business. Then, entering the SAP Sales Graduate Academy changed my career. I was given the opportunity to rotate through different areas of the business to get a taste of a few different organizations within SAP, while also building my personal and professional network. During my rotations I was introduced to Mobility. This new part of the business was attractive and fun to me, taking what I thought was a ‘job’ and making it into something where I could use my education as well as my creativity. I had the opportunity to work with businesses and develop mobile applications, and by the time the program ended I had spent more than three months in Mobility and loved every moment. I decided to join the team, not only because of the role but because of the people in Mobility and the leaders I would be supporting. From there I’ve grown into someone who really understands mobility and how SAP is leading the industry. Without the learning process I went through in my graduate training and development I would not be the employee I am today at SAP. I fully have the Graduate Academy team and SAP to thank for taking me from an indecisive new-grad to a fully operating Go-to-market Manager within the SAP Mobile team.
Mike Fraim, North America Mobility Business Development
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to be a part of the SAP Academic Conference. I am so privileged to have met so many professors and talk to them about how SAP is into design thinking and user experience and our strategy for creating consumer apps. I had the chance to show some of the apps and professors said they appreciated learning about these offerings from SAP!
Many of the professors I spoke with asked how their students could be considered for a career at SAP. I shared my story and encouraged them to have their students think of SAP as a great career choice. Some professors also wanted to know if there were any materials or projects that could help their students work on other topics like HANA analytics, and I encouraged them to connect with their University Alliances program manager for opportunities in these areas.
After finishing my Masters in Computer Science from North Carolina State University (2011), I joined SAP as a developer in our Technology Innovation Platform - Design Front Line applications team. I am so proud to be a part of this team. We make applications that run on SAP HANA which provide a beautiful user experience along with great app ideas. I shared that if students are exposed to these kind of apps in their course work, it will help them learn about SAP and see the opportunity to be part of an innovative company.
Shalini Pachineela, Technology Innovation Platform team
- SAP Managed Tags:
