The FINANCIAL — SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) on February 23 announced the launch of the SAP University Alliances community, an advanced, interactive Web portal designed for the academic population worldwide.
The portal is a multifaceted online environment that delivers the latest academic resources for bringing real-life SAP knowledge and skills into university classrooms. It will also enhance related academic and research-oriented projects for professors and students. The new portal demonstrates SAP's commitment to the education and mentoring of university students and graduates who are the business experts and IT leaders of the future.
The SAP University Alliances community delivers the comfortable feel of a traditional university campus, complete with a career resource center, faculty club, student union, library, classrooms, and other similar facilities in a virtual community setting. Each area presents higher education content supplied by SAP and community participants, including interactive academic resources, such as course lectures, case studies, exercises, demonstrations and videos; thought leadership forums; and community blogs. The site facilitates faculty and student collaboration and contribution, job posting and search, as well as networking with SAP customers, partners and business units. Skills development and career opportunities for university students, professors and other community participants are the central focus of the site.
"The users of this community-based portal will extend significantly beyond those involved with the long-standing SAP University Alliances program," said SAP co-CEO Léo Apotheker. "Professors and students from program member and non-member universities alike now have access to effective, clear networking tools designed to expand their skill sets for developing and using enterprise technology. The portal highlights SAP's global commitment to technology education, and will help increase student participation and expand the worldwide pool of SAP-knowledgeable graduates."
Portal Builds on and Expands Proven Collaborative Networks
The portal is built on the advanced technology of the SAP community network, where the SAP Developer Network (SDN) community, Business Process Expert (BPX) community and SAP BusinessObjects community already offer active online collaboration and co-innovation opportunities for SAP customers, partners and employees. Faculty and students now have the ability to communicate and participate with the larger SAP online community of 1.5 million users. The SAP University Alliances program has the potential to add thousands of professors and one million students to the greater SAP community network over the next few years.
"The cross pollination that is enabled between academia and industry by the SAP University Alliances community benefits both SAP and the participating students and universities," said Dr. Pierre-Majorique Léger, associate professor, Department of Information Technologies, HEC Montréal, and a moderator on the new SAP University Alliances portal. "The innovative educational tools are aimed to grow the high-value, skilled IT workforce critically needed in today's competitive global environment. As the global economy faces new challenges, the value of well-trained and career-ready individuals only becomes more apparent."
"What's impressive about this community is that it strikes the right balance between IT and business process disciplines to help students learn not only how to run IT, but the business as well. It also provides rich opportunities for unique academic and job roles in an expanding SAP ecosystem," said Cushing Anderson, program vice president, IDC.
SAP will spotlight the benefits and tools of the new portal at its next major faculty event, the SAP Curriculum Congress '09, to be held March 13-14, 2009, in Charlotte, North Carolina. Mark Yolton, senior vice president of the SAP Community Network, will be a keynote speaker.
