SAP calls on academics to participate in University Alliances User Group Meeting

Johannesburg — Academics from South Africa and the rest of Africa are invited to attend the annual User Group Meeting of the SAP University Alliance Programme (UAP), which will be held in Waldorf, Germany, on 9 and 10 September 2010.

The objective of the programme is to nurture talented graduates in the field of ICT, business and beyond, so that they can add value to their organisations. In order to achieve this, SAP brings universities and other tertiary institutions, the private sector, and non-governmental organisations together to identify which skills are needed most by the economy. This forum then develops relevant curricula that will, eventually, allow graduates to fill the skills gap.

The SAP UAP is a global initiative and the only one of its kind. It was started in the mid 1990s in Germany and now counts over 1 000 universities worldwide as members.

This year’s User Group Meeting will be used as the launching pad for the expansion of the University Alliances into Turkey. It will also focus on institutions in emerging markets. Max Fuzani, Director of the University Alliance in Africa, says: “In order for African institutions to maintain the resurgent interest and hunger for products such as the erp4students (www.erp4students.org), the new TERP10 delivery model, collaboration and sharing of best practices is a key requirement.

“The User Group Meetings provide such a solid platform for the firsthand sharing of ideas and knowledge transfer. It is for this reason that we would like as much input as possible from African academics in the ICT and business sectors. By the same token, we believe that academics would benefit from the exposure to the lessons learnt by UAPs in other countries.”

To register please refer to the attached invitation. Should you need further details about the University Alliances in general, please refer to the informative University Alliances Community Portal: http://uac.sap.com.

SAP

SAP is the world’s leading provider of business software(*), offering applications and services that enable companies of all sizes and in more than 25 industries to become best-run businesses. With more than 97 000 customers in over 120 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges, including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE, under the symbol “SAP”. For more information, visit http://www.sap.com.

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