The two-day biennial event – Saphila 2017 has kicked off at Sun City today, and is providing delegates with an innovative learning experience through knowledge sharing, allowing businesses to reimagine digital possibilities.
The event is one of the premier ICT gatherings in South Africa, with a significant history behind it.
The first day of the event has focused on knowledge-sharing through breakaway sessions, with a panel of experts that engage with the delegates.
“The goal of the event is to provide a local platform where SAP users can connect, create and collaborate through sharing knowledge about innovations, implementation and service delivery with their partners,” says Brett Parker, SAP Africa Managing Director.
Delegates also have the opportunity to engage with SAP and AFSUG through the app launched for Saphila 2017, which can be downloaded from the App Store or Google Play store now.
The app gives delegates convenient access to agendas and speaker profiles, while hosting an exciting competition element where Saphila attendees will find and scan QR codes throughout Sun City to earn points.
The lucky Saphila delegate who snaps the most QR codes over the two-day conference will win a Kia Picanto, sponsored by ClickSoftware, and the runner up will win a Lenovo Yoga300 Notebook, which will be awarded in the closing plenary on Tuesday 6 June.
Both local and international industry experts are representing SAP at the conference, including:
- Doug Ryder and Scott Gibson, Doug: Owner – Ryder Cycling, Scott: Dimension Data Digital Practice Group Executive.
- Andreas Tziovaridis, SAP SE France, Director Global Customer Influence.
- Komalin Chetty, Telkom SA, Snr Specialist: Data Givernance.
- Mr Tiger Liu, Huawei, SAP Servers Solutions Director.
- Roze Phillips, Accenture, Managing Director.
Delegates at Saphila 2017 can look forward to seeing a lot of digital innovation, with many of the presentations focusing on what the future of digital holds.“Disruption is happening and things are moving at the speed of light that from a customer point of view to keep innovating as fast as you need to, you need to have a platform that is not highly customised, that is in the cloud and your business partners to innovate quickly for you – delegates will see a lot of that and there will be opportunities to network with industry thought leaders and share best practices,” says Parker.
Exhibition
The exhibition has also officially opened, with leading ICT companies displaying leading technology solutions.
The Diamond sponsores are Britehouse and SAP, while the Platinum sponsors of the 2017 Saphila Conference & Expo are Huawei, T-Systems, Click-Software, Deloitte, and the Executive forum lounge sponsor is Accenture.
The exhibition hall will also run the whole day tomorrow, and event sponsors will have the opportunity to present their products during one-hour sessions.
“Businesses need to reimagine the digital landscape and look at where future of digital is headed if they want to get ahead,” says Tom Raftery, SAP VP, Futurist & Global Internet of Things Evangelist.
“It is hard to predict forward and see what’s down the line and to do that we first need to look back and look what life was like 10 years back. In 2007, there was no whatsapp, Apple TV, no smartphones, no tablets, and today we are we are already looking at automation with self-driving and even flying cars,” he adds.
This article was published in partnership with Saphila.
