My experience here with young Computer Scientists in Santiago gives me a little window in understanding Chile’s prosperous economy. Yesterday I had the opportunity to host the HANA CodeJam in the Universidad Católica de Chile. The engineering program opened the doors to SAP and invited students in their program to have a hands-on experience with SAP HANA. Sophomore, Senior and PHD students actively dive into five hours of SAP HANA. It did not matter how familiar they were in programming tools or databases, all of them were willing and eager to learn, follow the material prepared and understand how SAP responds to today’s challenges of Big Data and real-time.
SAP engagements with universities in Latin America are certainly influencing young professionals. I often ask “How many of you know about the core business of SAP and our platforms” I was very pleased that a big majority were familiar with SAP and our tools. Even if most of them probably did not use them, most of them knew about SAP. For me this is certainly a positive change as I recall my university days and only learning of SAP once I started my career. SAP CodeJam around the world are not only bringing of SAP awareness to young minds but most importantly are going the extra mile by having hands-on workshops where these students can play and learn. A comment from faculty that collaborated in this event makes the point.
“We are hoping that this is the first of many engagements of SAP with our University”
Creating Tables, Views while enjoying good food
Asking students to start using a platform by creating Tables, Views write SQL code could be a big ASK but not for yesterday’s participants. Also, how can anything go wrong if students at any point in time can enjoy delicious sandwiches and pastries? I was pleased that the university opened the necessary ports to allow students and myself to connect to HANA AWS systems. I learned from a previous HANA CodeJam that this request is not an easy one to comply due to University firewalls policies. This time in Santiago all students successfully accessed the AWS HANA systems with little trouble. Yes, the wireless connection at times made everyone take a food brake but in all yesterday was an active involvement from their part and they had the chance to see how the HANA Platform works. I should add that having 30 day free Cloudshare HANA systems as back up scenario played an important role. Actually, most of the students besides installing HANA Dev studio and HANA Client in their laptops they also got accounts in Cloudshare. As one student put it:
“I plant to take advantage of the 30 days in Cloudshare to complete the tutorial and learn more of HANA”
Good Clues
Universidad Católica de Chile and students were certainly appreciative of SAP doing a CodeJam with them. Throughout the 5 hours we often had a university film crew taking pictures and video. At the end of the event I was asked to do a short video take explaining the SAP HANA CodeJam and SAP’s collaboration with the Universidad Católica de Chile, later I learned that this material will be used by the university press to bring awareness of their engineering program. On the other hand throughout the brakes I was asked by participants of the possibilities getting more involved with SAP; certifications, further training, etc. These are all “Good Clues” that the HANA CodeJam in Santiago was a success for everyone. This morning I receive an email from one of the participants that I think summarizes the success of this event, here is the translation in English
“I was in the HANA CodeJam yesterday..…. I am in computer science IT (Ingeniería Civil Industrial mención en Tecnologías de la Información) and I am very interested in the possibility to explore an internship or professional opportunities with SAP Chile or anywhere in SAP….”
Universidad Católica de Chile was the right place for SAP to have a CodeJam next Buenos Aires.
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