Global companies are always on the hunt for fresh new talent to make sure they stay ahead of the innovation curve. SAP, a global leader in enterprise applications and the third largest software manufacturer in the world, is no different. To keep a close eye on talented young people who want to enter the ICT world, they not only have a University Alliance programme, but they also sponsor competitions in the technological sphere to recognise and develop talent. Two of these competitions in Australia and New Zealand are the Young ICT Explorers Competition, and the Dashboard Competition.
Young ICT Explorers
This is a schools-based SAP competition designed by SAP to encourage young people to develop ideas or products in the technology sector. Students compete in four different age groups to keep the playing field fair. Thirty-six schools participated in the 2012 competition. Projects were assessed by a panel of academics, ICT professionals and industry partners. The criteria on which the projects were judged were creativity, quality, difficulty level and project documentation. When the judging was complete the judges said they were extremely impressed by the standard of work submitted by the school children.
Those who won first prize in the four age groups, starting from the youngest were:
- Abbotsleigh Junior School: a Super Safety Project created using stop motion animation.
- Da Le Salle College: a Battery Meter Report to track battery levels on a device.
- Newington College: iSchool application for iPhone and iPad to keep track of schoolwork and exams.
- Oxford Falls Grammar School: a multimedia feature film called Inroad with a complementary website and flash mini-game.
SAP Dashboard Competition: Junior Achievers
SAP’s Dashboard design competition is fairly popular among students. This competition is for students at Australian and New Zealand universities, and requires students to develop a dashboard using the SAP Crystal Dashboard Design. The dashboard must analyse financial performance indicators for Junior Achievers, an international non-profit organisation that helps students make good academic, career and economic choices for the road ahead.
The dashboards are to be designed in teams and must, of course, meet specific requirements laid out in the competition details.
Each member of the winning team will receive an Apple iPad and their dashboard will be displayed on the SAP website. The second runner up will receive free SAP training.
More to come
SAP competitions are hosted under the SAP University Alliance Programme and more competitions are in the pipeline. Other competition ideas that have been considered for SAP in the future are the development of a business enterprise portal, a game to reduce C02 emissions and an SAP Playground, where students offer tips to each other or teach other students to use SAP.
This guest post about SAP competition was written by Natalie Simon on behalf of SAP Careers, which promotes SAP contract job opportunities anywhere in the world, SAP Careers is the niche job site for you.