Earlier this year, the SAP Next-Gen program announced a global gender agenda, showcasing how women lead the way in public-private partnerships. In February and early March, SAP Next-Gen worked to scale the impact of this agenda at events featuring leaders from industry, academia, startups, government, sports organizations, and partners.
Fostering Gender Equality in Sports
Last month in Charlotte, North Carolina, SAP Next-Gen and The Female Quotient spotlighted gender equality in sports. The FQ Equality Lounge @ NBA All Star 2019 created a space for female leaders — in Charlotte and beyond — to unpack where their bravery comes from, what motivates them, and why it’s important to take risks. The voices of leaders inspired an audience of female athletes and supporters to tap into the power of perseverance, explaining how passion fuels success and how some of the best learning opportunities are borne from failures.
“When you add more women to any equation, the equation gets better,” said Shelley Zalis, CEO of The Female Quotient. “We hosted the FQ Equality Lounge at NBA All-Star because it’s an amazing opportunity to bring visibility to women both on and off the court, encourage collaboration between change agents for greater impact, and activate solutions for advancing parity.”
“SAP Next-Gen shares a joint passion with The Female Quotient for pushing for progress in gender equality in the sports world and beyond,” said Ann Rosenberg, senior vice president and global head of SAP Next-Gen. “At NBA All Star 2019 we shared a call to action to join the movement to foster female leaders across all walks of life, including sports.”
Tapping the Creativity of Women and the Power of Science Fiction Thinking
SAP Next-Gen also joined forces with The Female Quotient at MWC19 in Barcelona, Spain. Panel discussions during the event at the FQ Lounge – Home of Equality @ MWC19 highlighted diverse perspectives of next-generation female innovators.
The panel “Why and How We’re Rewriting the Rules of the Workplace” covered how, as more women come into leadership roles, visionary organizations are ensuring their influence helps create a more inclusive workplace that can accelerate innovation linked to the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
In “The Leaders of Tomorrow: Advancing the Next Generation of Talent,” Rosenberg shared that due to shifting demographics and new technology, the future of work will include jobs that do not yet exist. She invited individuals to join in public-private partnerships to foster the next generation of purpose-driven leadership for the future.
Rosenberg also introduced the MWC19 audience to her book, Science Fiction – A Starship Enterprise for Innovation, and discussed how with science fiction thinking, innovators can think beyond limitations and imagine the future of industries. Leveraging digital technologies — such as machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality and virtual reality, robotics, drones, the Internet of Things (IoT), and cloud — can create a future where the SDGs are realized.
As part of supporting SAP at MWC19, SAP Next-Gen also highlighted the winning student teams of the SAP Customer Experience hackathon, a code with purpose event held in October 2018. The teams shared their solutions and how they are linked to advancing one or more of the SDGs. While developing their apps, the students used offerings from the SAP Customer Experience portfolio, including SAP Cloud Platform Extension Factory, the SAP Customer Data Cloud portfolio, and the SAP Sales Cloud and SAP Service Cloud solutions.
Driving a Global Gender Agenda
At South by Southwest (SXSW), SAP Next-Gen accelerated its global gender agenda through a series of engaging activations at the SAP House at Trinity & Second and the FQ Lounge, Home of Equality at SXSW. Here, SAP Next-Gen urged becoming part of driving a purpose-driven community that fosters young female innovators and encourages young women and girls to pursue STEAM education.
“On International Women’s Day at SXSW, together with the Female Quotient, we were proud to announce the launch of the FQ app to connect a network focused on empowering women and girls in technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship linked to the SDGs,” said Rosenberg. “The app provides a platform for next-generation female leaders to join events, be inspired by new stories in the community, find a nearby FQ Lounge, Home of Equality on Campus, and get educated on STEAM topics to help them become purpose-driven innovators.”
The Next Generation of Female Data Scientists
As part of a global collaboration with the Women in Data Science (WiDS) conference, SAP Next-Gen is hosting more than 40 WiDS regional events in 2019. Through keynotes and panel discussions, participants learn how they can join a global movement to inspire and educate the next generation of data scientists and support women in the field.
