SAP Announces €335,000 Commitment to National Entrepreneurship Network as Part of New Emerging Entrepreneurs Mentoring Initiative.
Bangalore — SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced a three-year commitment to National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN), India’s largest entrepreneurial organization with a comprehensive focus on high-impact entrepreneurs, to create a strong mentoring ecosystem in order to accelerate job creation and responsible, sustainable business growth for entrepreneurs in India.
“Today’s entrepreneurs are the bedrock of tomorrow’s economy,” said Bill McDermott, co-CEO, SAP. “We believe in the ‘Power of Small,’ and that the private sector plays a vital role in helping small businesses and entrepreneurs drive innovation, job creation and wealth. We recognize that helping entrepreneurs and small businesses achieve their full potential is not something that can be achieved in a 90-day cycle. With this initiative, SAP is making a clear commitment to invest in their long-term future by providing talent, technology and capital.”
Emerging entrepreneurs play a vital role in driving economic growth and addressing societal needs while building successful ventures that create new jobs, but require capital, technology, mentorship or other resources to succeed.
Mentoring being one of the most critical gaps in the evolving Indian entrepreneurial eco-system, SAP and NEN will together build mentoring capacity in India over the next three years by identifying, educating and supporting high-quality mentors. This program, a part of SAP’s new Emerging Entrepreneur initiative, will provide high leverage for SAP and industry mentors to help entrepreneurs grow their businesses.
SAP and NEN will select entrepreneurs and their companies that have a proven business model, a focus on innovation and societal impact, and a propensity to scale with technology. These selected entrepreneurs will receive access to high-potential employee volunteers and mentors as well as innovation grants and technology support from SAP. Ultimately, SAP and NEN will facilitate the growth and development of innovative companies that will help transform their communities through job creation leading to economic acceleration.
“High-potential entrepreneurs are critical for India to create the tens of millions of jobs it needs over the next decade,” said K. Srikrishna, Executive Director, National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN) India. NEN’s mission to create and support such entrepreneurs is significantly strengthened by partnering with a global leader and innovator such as SAP. By investing in developing mentors and the entrepreneurial ecosystem, NEN and SAP will enable more entrepreneurs to grow and create the jobs India needs.”
SAP and NEN plan to:
- Train 30 mentors across India who will support 300 emerging entrepreneurs in India.
- Select 100 SAP experts who, through skilled-based volunteering assignments, will help emerging entrepreneurs with their specific technology requirements.
- Select five emerging entrepreneurs who will receive a technology assessment, technology solutions and an innovation growth grant from SAP.
Enabling New Job Creation
According to a recent Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) survey sponsored by SAP, the world needs to create more than 500 million new jobs by 2020 in order to provide career opportunities for the currently unemployed as well as young people who will join the workforce. The bulk of this challenge falls on countries in the developing world, including Brazil and India.
The EIU survey indicates that small businesses are putting in place a variety of measures to help ensure they are well-positioned to exploit growth opportunities. At the top of the list is funding; forty-one percent of small businesses are seeking new financing to take advantage of the opportunities available to them. To exploit further growth opportunities, small businesses are also ensuring they have access to the right expertise and the right skills. Through the initiative, entrepreneurs will gain better access to financing and will receive guidance in reducing the regulatory burden of doing business through workshops and mentoring sessions.
For more information, visit the SAP Newsroom.
About National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN)
National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN), an initiative of the Wadhwani Foundation, inspires, educates and supports high-potential entrepreneurs to create high-value jobs. NEN does this by building institutional capacity and a robust entrepreneurial eco-system. Today, it represents India’s largest and most vibrant entrepreneurial community. The backbone of the NEN Community comprises of more than 550 member academic institutes with 1200 entrepreneurship faculty and 400 student E Cells and numerous NEN E Clubs, driven by the NEN Alumni and open to the public. These bodies organize an astonishing breadth and depth of programs across the country that create and support entrepreneurs. In addition, the NEN members support each other individually to realize their entrepreneurial ambitions. For more information, visit www.nenonline.org
About SAP
As market leader in enterprise application software, SAP (NYSE: SAP) helps companies of all sizes and industries run better. From back office to boardroom, warehouse to storefront, desktop to mobile device – SAP empowers people and organizations to work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively to stay ahead of the competition. SAP applications and services enable more than 230,000 customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably. For more information, visit www.sap.com.
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