DEMO Fall 2013
“For over 22 years, DEMO has built an unmatched track record of selecting, coaching, promoting and making successful some of the most game-changing products the world has ever seen” (demo.com).
This year, SAP Startup Focus Program initiated a platinum sponsorship at DEMO Fall in Santa Clara. This event brought together over 800 professionals including investors, global innovators, entrepreneurs, and F500 Technology Leaders—the latter, who served as speakers for the event. SAP had a packed schedule at the event with a booth exploring opportunities with HANA, a fireside chat with Dr. Vishal Sikka, Member of the Executive Board of SAP AG, Products & Innovation, and evaluations for the DEMO Big Data Startup award.
Startup Focus showcased the program at DEMO, led by Sanjay Shirole, to startups showing them what SAP Hana can do for their big data solution. The most attractive part of the program to the startups was the market enablement team that helps make introductions to our existing clients. The Hana Marketing team, led by Rajiv Nema, was also present showcasing HANA use cases for Precision Marketing, Precision Gaming, and Predictive Maintenance. Warwick Analytics, a UK based startup that runs on HANA and a member of the SAP Startup Focus program, launched at DEMO Fall 2013. This company was also one of the few recipients of the DEMO God award!
Dr. Vishal Sikka was interviewed during a fireside chat by Jon Fortt, Technology Correspondent at CNBC. On stage, Vishal discussed SAP HANA’s positive impact on the company. After the fireside chat, Vishal joined the Startup Focus team at the booth to explain the benefits of HANA to those that stopped by; a treat for some.
Lastly, Startup Focus shortlisted 23 startups out of the 40+ attending to qualify for the Demo Big Data award. Startup Focus team members interviewed the startups and scored them on various factors. Out of the 23, the finalists were Seratis in 3rd place, ArgoPay in 2nd, and DataBox in 1st having been awarded the Startup Focus trophy.
The Startup Focus program is the first one of it’s kind within SAP, whose primary goal is to reach out to startups for the early adoption of the HANA platform. We are now working with over 1000 startups, as of TechEd Las Vegas, worldwide. DEMO Fall 2013 was a successful event and proves how much more we, as a company, can help startups not only across the world, but also in our own backyard.