SAP HANA Cloud Platform – CodeJams in Africa – July 2015

SAP University Alliances (SAP UA), in collaboration with SAP Labs, Sofia (Bulgaria) amd SAP Marketing in Palo Alto, conducted a series of SAP HANA Cloud Platform (HCP) CodeJams (CJs), using Java, at 5 South African Universities. In a whirlwind series of events, the specialists from the HCP team in Sofia, Vlado Pavlov and Alexander Silgidjian, accompanied by SAP UA Africa team members (De Wet Naude and Kwena Mabotja), managed to execute these 5 event on 4 cities, in 7 days, in South Africa, as follows:

– University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Johannesburg on 23 July

– Belgium Campus (BC), Pretoria, on 24 July

– University of Pretoria (UP), on 25 July

– University of the Western Cape (UWC), Cape Town, on 28 July

– Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU), Port Elizabeth, on 30 July.

This was the first time CJs were held at South African universities, where students were exposed to a real-world cloud platform. More than 150 students registered for the various events. In most cases, the attendees were 3rd and 4th year Computer Science and Information Systems students. Java skills were varied and the facilitators (Vlado and Alex) adopted their approach according to the average Java skills levels of the groups.

Despite some technology challenges, the events were concluded successfully and students indicated that they derived considerable value from these events.

Working with the SAP HANA Cloud Platform (hcp.sap.com/) was a new experience to most, if not all, students.

The student’s spirits were boosted by generous helpings of pizza, which is now synonymous with CJ’s in Africa.

The Photos below chronicles the highlights of the series of events:

Wits