First of all, this experience was a dream come true for me. I work for the Ecosystem and Channel Marketing team for SSSA & Caribbean. One of the things that I’m in charge of is the newsletter for SME clients and for LAC Partners, so I am always looking for new content for both SME clients and partners. For that reason, when I discovered Innojam I was very interested in attending. I also receive SAP UA Newsletters, so I was very curious and applied to receive a free ticket on the day of CebIT. I started to talk with Daniel Von Dungen, who invited me on JAM to the SAP Student Council, and he helped to make this dream come true. I asked him if I could participate in InnoJam, so he interviewed me. He liked the way I was fighting for this opportunity, so he recommend me to the organizers who then accepted me. I asked my Marketing Manager to help cover the airfare because it is too expensive for an intern of LATAM. They liked that I took initiative, and they helped me with the ticket.
I arrived in Germany on Tuesday after traveling for 2 days. I slept, and the next day, Wednesday I had to wake up at 7 am to be at InnoJam by 9 am. We met the others students, and the InnoJam event started at 10 am. The first part was the “design thinking.” We worked on that until 12 am the next day, and then coding started at almost 1 am until 3:30 pm on Thursday. At 5:30 pm we had to go to the CebIT for the awards presentation.
Well, first I have to say that it was very nice to meet people from SAP Germany, and it was amazing for me to share this experience with them. I met the Managing Director of SAP Germany, Hartmut Thomsen and Ann Rosenberg the Global Head of SAP University Alliances, as well as many other students in SAP Germany.
On my team, there were 9 boys and girls from 8 different countries: (Germany, Poland, Holland, Slovenia, Russia, Austria, Namibia and Peru), of which I was the only marketer. Others were system programmers, a graphic designer and an economist). This helped us to have a lot of diversity in ideas. In our group, called "Hakuna Matata," we had the challenge of creating an application for the BMW Foundation Young Leaders Awards http://www.bmw-stiftung.de/en/ who do social work. The issue for them was that this foundation does events and forums, and they invite leaders between the ages of 35-45. They are inspired to do projects, and say they will do it, but are unable to complete them. BMW wanted us to create an application that allows the team members to keep in touch. It did not matter that we did not win 1st place, (except that first place team were able to go to Las Vegas, hahaha) but what really mattered was that we were able to be there, participate, meet people, experience, learn and feel that your dreams can come true. Visit this URL to see our application on your mobile device or on a computer (you must have Java installed): https://testp1780828883trial.nwtrial.ondemand.com/hakunamatata/MyProfile
I was so proud of the Success Stories tab in the app that we implemented. I proposed, as a test, to help poor children in Peru, and they loved my idea. I felt very proud of my country. In addition, not only did I represent the Latin America Marketing Team, but also, I represented the American continent as it was the only American in the whole event!! :smile: :smile: I was so so happy! I received a lot of congrats here in LAC.
Now I’m so interested in studying programming although it is a complicated and technical language, but I see there is a big market and a lot of opportunities there. I am also thinking about going to Germany to make a Master degree!
You can see pictures and videos from SAP InnoJam here:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151296410347373.1073741826.507082372&type=3
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151578664812498.1073741830.367939082497&type=3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAS1vP2Li-M&list=PL2y9_fE-lm1_wb5wZ6GcpsdyjdGOysoEG&index=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFdC5RwZfG4&feature=player_embedded ( Polish TV interview)
I recommend you like a student or any person to always go behin your dreams and do not stop until you have it on your hands, the only limit as our Colombians friends says is the sky :wink: !!!
Maria Paz Herrera Veramendi
