SAP Community - SAP InnoJam

Let’s start with a clean sheet of paper!

2016-09-09T11:21:51+02:00

It’s not very often that we in IT are given a clean sheet of paper and told, “Guys, solve this challenge!”. But that’s basically InnoJam at SAP TechEd and you get just over 30 hours to do it before you get to show it to a team of Judges.

The only things you need to come to InnoJam with are your laptop, devices, and any hardware, such as IoT, that you think you may use to solve a challenge in Education & Research. We will supply the room, food, and experts. In Las Vegas, SUSE, our ‘Inspirational Co-Sponsor’, are sponsoring refreshments to keep you going during the 30+ hours of coding!

These challenges have been created by a domain expert team at SAP, and will be randomly selected by each team leader picking an envelope. So it's back to a competitive hackathon! They are then judged by a team of Judges and the best 6 go through to DemoJam, where the SAP TechEd attendees will decide the DemoJam winner!

You may ask, "Wow that seems a real mountain to climb?” but once you have registered for InnoJam you will be sent an invite to a private SAP JAM Group, specific for the location you will be at. We have worked with some of the SAP experts, technical & domain, that will be at InnoJam in person to help get you up to speed before the event, so it's crucial that you join and get involved before setting off to SAP TechEd. This JAM group will also be the place that you can get in the forum to meet other attendees, and start to form a team before InnoJam. That's if you haven't joined as a team initially. Each team is a maximum of 5 people, so you’re climbing that mountain as a team!

We had so many positive comments in last years feedback, attendees loved the pressure… crazy I know, but how often are we given a clean sheet of paper?

See you all at SAP Tech Ed and I hope that you will consider registering and attending InnoJam soon…Check out It's time to JAM!!

Our first is only just over a week away in Las Vegas

How I Spent My First 30 Hours in Las Vegas

2016-09-27T22:53:47+02:00

What a weekend! My first InnoJam was quite an experience. This was my first time to Las Vegas as well and I spent my first 30 hours there attending a hackathon. Who knew you could spend your whole weekend in Vegas coding...well all the cool kids do! We had an amazing group of attendees, who were a joy to work with all weekend. From the minute they got their challenges, they were off to the races.

Many teams started they’re brainstorming on Saturday night right after the Kickoff Celebration ended. Teams grabbed a beer and staked their claim on a table and flip board to start design thinking for their solutions. When it was time to close the doors for the night, many teams did not want to leave.

On Day 1 of InnoJam, I saw teams using so many different technologies. It was so neat to see how SAP can be integrated with everything from IOT sensors to a HoloLens. A lot of teams were building native mobile apps as well.

One team that really blew my mind was a group of students who had just met each other the day before and no one on their team had any coding experience. But yet at hour 12 of InnoJam, they had a fully functioning native mobile app! It was amazing to see how much they learned and accomplished over the 30-hour competition. I got to be a judge for their final product, and it blew the whole judging panel away to see how far they had come in such a short time.

But that was just 1 team. All 10 teams presented truly amazing and interesting solutions to some really tough challenges we threw their way. It was hard just to pick the final 6 to move on to DemoJam because each team brought an innovative solution to a difficult, real-world challenge.

Thanks to all of our participants for coming out and showing off your coding chops. It was so much fun to be a part of and I can’t wait to see what Bangalore and Barcelona have in store!

SAP NextGen together with CeBIT Innojam winners at Bits & Pretzels in Munich

2016-09-30T12:09:44+02:00

It has been quite an exciting journey for the team of the Smart Driving School since they won the SAP & Volkswagen Innojam at CeBIT. They received start up mentoring, published a number of press articles about their idea and recently they also attended the Bitz & Pretzels Founders Festival in Munich. I had the opportunity to sit down with two of the winners and ask them a couple of questions on their time after the big win at CeBIT 2016 and their road to Bits and Pretzels.

So just to get a better understanding of your success, how did you get to the Innojam?

Mirko: “Our story actually began previous year at a different Innojam. I participated as an individual in a random team. We did well and I got infected by the great challenges provided by SAP and Volkswagen. So, when our professor started talking about the Innojam this year again, I asked a couple of friends to join my pursuit, and they ended up bringing along some of their fellow students as well. We pretty much all saw each other in Hannover for the first time as a team.”

What do you think, made the difference this year?

Rouven: “I think the diversity of our team´s setup was a big part of our success. We did not really know each other well, but from the very first moment, we managed to have a nice and productive work environment. On top of this, we had great support from our mentors from VW and SAP. They guided us through the design thinking process, taught us about HCP and Fiori as well as the concept of connected mobility. It was great to be able to learn from such experienced VW and SAP employees.”

How did the idea of the “Smart Driving School” develop after the event?

Mirko: “We received an invitation from the innowerft to join their “Durchstarter” program after we won the innojam. This is a 12 weeks program, which aims for startups in a really early stage of their business. At the end of every month, we were able to pitch our current state of our idea to the other startups in the program. This was one of many great opportunities to receive feedback on our idea in this real startup environment.”

Which role did VW and SAP play since then?

Rouven: “Unfortunately we haven’t really been in touch with VW since CeBIT, however, we are about to get in touch with them soon. SAP has played a large role in the whole Smart Driving School idea. We have been introduced to the IoT LoB of SAP and visited the innovation pavilion at the headquarters in Waldorf. On top of this, we stayed in touch with SAP University Alliance during our development and Mirko will even join SAP consulting beginning of next year.”

So you are currently at Bits & Pretzels. How do you like it so far?

Mirko: “First of all, these last days have been an amazing experience. I admit that I am a House of Cards fan, but I was just blown away by Kevin Spacey’s keynote. He is just such an inspiring person. Besides listening to Hollywood stars, we really enjoyed to chat with other startups about their key to success and potential challenges. There is just so much to learn here.”

Rouven: “I agree, I really liked Kevin Spacey and Matthias Zimmerman, the co-founder of SAP hybris. He really encouraged us to pursue our dream by sharing his experiences and struggles as a founder during his keynote. In general, it was super interesting and exciting to meet SAP employees from SAP hybris and SAP University Alliances. On top of all these exciting things, we connected with many startups from the smart mobility industry. Especially the conversation with the founders of tanktaler was very helpful. They focus on a similar topic and we are going to follow up on aligning ideas and possible partnerships."

Is there anything you look forward to the most tomorrow?

Mirko: “Well, as we all know tomorrow is a networking session at the Oktoberfest here in Munich. Such a great location to mingle and network. We are super excited to learn from our “table captain”, which is pretty much our coach at our table. He is a very inspiring person that works for Google.”

So now to the probably most difficult question: What are your future plans with the Smart Driving School?

Rouven: “You got us there! We learned a lot since CeBIT. We learned, what can be possible keys to success for a startup and what can lead to failure. All five of us are currently in different stages in our lives, which makes it really difficult to commit to such an idea. We are currently still looking into how we could combine work, academia and our startup idea. Maybe you guys from SAP can even help us with that.

InnoJam Bangalore

2016-10-03T09:20:13+02:00

This week past we had what can only be described as the best attendance ever for an InnoJam! At SAP Labs in Whitfield, we had 33 teams that attend the InnoJam based upon the theme of Education & Research. InnoJam in turn will feed six teams into DemoJam on Wednesday evening during SAP TechEd at the Bangalore International Exhibition Center.

The teams had 36+ hours to develop a solution to one of the six challenges set by our domain experts, that each team lead selected randomly.

After presenting to our judges, the six teams through to DemoJam at SAP TechEd are…

KPITes

Solex

Amazing Alexa

Slumber Games

Freaky Science

Dexter

They will present live on stage to the SAP TechEd audience at it will be the audience the will decide!

You can watch live here

Namaste Bangalore - who's ready for a hackathon?

2016-10-03T09:46:04+02:00

Good morning India!

After 2 (maybe 3…still a bit jet-lagged) days of flying, we arrived in Bangalore the morning of the start of InnoJam. After taking a long nap, the team headed over to the SAP Labs office in Bangalore. This is my first time in India, so my face has been glued to the window since we landed.

The InnoJam kickoff was supposed to start at 5:00pm, but we had so many people attend that registration was a bit backed up and we had to start a tad later. The room was packed! We had 143 attendees that made up 33 teams. It was the largest number of teams in InnoJam history!

Saturday was a hectic day. With 33 teams to help out, the expert table always had visitors. I was able to help out with some new challenges that I had not faced before. I had to explore the CSS of the SAP provided themes to understand what was setting the screen max properties, and I had to find a way around adding an AJAX header since the network was not allowing headers to be added to the calls (one option is forcing the token as a request parameter). By the end of the day, I was exhausted but excited for Sunday to see the final products.

When Sunday rolled around, it was a mad dash to the finish! Judging started at noon, and with so many teams, we had to create a third panel so everyone didn’t have to stay all day. After all it was a holiday. Happy Birthday Gandhi…and Thomas!

I was one of the judging panels, so I only got to see 9 teams' solutions to 2 of the tough challenges we gave to the teams. It was hard just to pick 1 winner from each challenge. So many teams presented incredible ideas!

Thank you to all the attendees! You made my first time in Bangalore (and India!) so much fun! And of course, Good Luck to our final 6 teams in DemoJam at SAP TechEd on October 5^th!

Final stop of the 2016 SAP InnoJam tour!

2016-10-10T10:43:23+02:00

We've completed two successful stops for our 2016 SAP InnoJam tour so far, in Las Vegas and just recently in Bangalore and now it's time for our final stop in Barcelona! We were blown away with the sheer quality and innovation we saw in those events are really excited to see it continue in Barcelona!! Will you join us? Have you already?

As you know, to compete and win in the InnoJam means you will move onto the DemoJam during the week of the event in front of a much larger audience! With over 40 teams so far in 2 locations competing with 12 moving on to the finals and finally down to a single winner in each location.

In Las Vegas, 8 time competing, 5 time winners Keytree took the stage while in Bangalore it was a group of innovative SAPers who took the win!

Now with Barcelona just days away we decided to keep the registration open and add a few extra seats to give you a chance to register as an individual or as a team before you even get on site!

See you in Barcelona!!!

** Photos courtesy of SAP TechEd

Alexa, Start DemoJam

2016-10-13T22:43:37+02:00

DemoJam in Bangalore was exhilarating! There must have been a couple thousand people in the crowds. Seeing the evolution of the presentations and the solutions from Sunday to Wednesday was exciting. What were already great solutions were even more thrilling up on the big stage. The 2 teams I judged in InnoJam blew me away with their presentations at DemoJam. They really took our feedback to heart and presented awe inspiring solutions to really tough problems. In fact, all the teams presented really thought provoking solutions! We saw cool uses of voice technologies like the Amazon Echo and some slick native Android and iOS apps. In my opinion, everyone was a winner Wednesday night. I don’t know who the crowd chose just 1! Congrats to the Amazing Alexa team!

Barcelona, it's your turn now! To take the stage and wow the crowd, you have to compete in InnoJam which will take place Nov 5-7. Sign up for your chance at fame and glory on the DemoJam stage!

Innojam, Behavioral Reflection, Big Data and (Higher) Education and Research

2016-11-03T19:38:13+01:00

In 2 days from now, we will be in Barcelona with my colleagues to coach and to inspire teams that will have 30–36 hours to conceive of and build a real, working solution using specific SAP technologies.

This year's focus wil be ... Education and Research .. .and I was appointed as an industry expert (oooohhhh yeeeessss :)).

¿ Is it because I spent too much time at the universities or within research institutes ?

Flash back ....

19 years ago, I was indeed working on my PhD with two jedis LActe/R Jean-Pierre and Claude studying how to use Behavioral Reflection in Object-Oriented Programming Languages. As with all (decent 😉 ) PhD topic, the large majority of the reader will wonder what exactly means 'Reflection' in this context .

¿ Why am I telling you this ?

Will Behavioral Reflection be one the 'top secret' challenges proposed by Silke, Keith, Malcolm, Rob, and myself and mixed by Iain?

Or may be is it to simplify the Erasmus administrative process as shown in Cedric Klapish movie 'L'Auberge Espagnole'? (I hope this one changed a bit)

It is more than that, Reflection ultimately paves the way for programs to self-adaptation.

¿ But why should a program adapt itself and when?

Programs should adapt their behavior to best take into account the context of the execution to achieve their goals. However, 20 years ago was the era of the Mega (eg. Megahertz, Megaoctet), Programs were mainly autistic barely communicating limiting de facto their reification (perception) of the world.

20 years down the road and since some time now, we entered the Petabyte era, Social data, Things, Machine and Wearable are making the digital version of the world closer to the reality. Data and Algorithms enable to predict trends and Machine learning is leveraging experiments to take informed decisions. This is what we call Digitization.

This is exactly what we need to support Parents, Students, Teachers, Staff, Pedagogues, Researchers, Mentors to make the Education and Research world more effective.

Programs should adapt and leverage Big Data and associated (SAP!) technologies to buy us time,
the time to do something interesting ...

Time to Learn, Time to build Knowledge, Time to make Discoveries

It isn't what Education and Research is all about ?

¿ So what your PhD will be about ?

And for our contenders Os veremos dentro de dos dias in Barcelona, this is the type of solution that we will love to see !

;)

We Did it! We won DemoJam Barcelona 2016 ! And this is how...

2016-11-15T11:13:45+01:00

What an experience! Being able to develop a solution in 36 hours! Meet the best team - Carolina Martinez, Gaëtan Magal, Roberts Zentelis, Yanitsa Kircheva and Iliyan Iliev !
We met amazing people in the process, presented in front of SAP TechEd and finally WON DemoJam. A week to remember!

Thanks to all the people who supported us on the way!
SAP University Alliances, Universität Liechtenstein and our heroes who trusted and supported us without a doubt - Dr Bernd Shenk, Kevin Flesher, michael.jess, gregorw María Cal, Daniel von Dungen and our Information Systems group cheering us form Liechtenstein!

Here is our DemoJam presentation of 'Unibuddy' by Carolina Martinez & Gaëtan Magal

Unibuddy
We developed Unibuddy to solve the appointed InnoJam challenge. Better yet we were developing to resolve our own needs as fresh students in our program at University of Liechtenstein. We have learned that there is no information which can replace the shared peers’ experience. So there we are letting Juanito speak from our behalf!

The Tech
From complete foreigners to SAP word of technologies our team has been propelled to work and integrate some of the most powerful ones.

HCP - Hana Cloud platform

SAP Web IDE

SAPUI5

HANA XS Application - which empowered Juanito to rely on his data with Unibuddy even when he is out of the University’s Wi-Fi zone.

And there are so many we are looking forward to discover and apply!

Our SAP InnoJam journey in pictures
It all started from the University of Liechtenstein, Vaduz packing our bags with tech and excitement. And there we are arriving at InnoJam Barcelona 2016

Step 1 Received our challenge

Step 2 Getting ready for development

Step 3 Tackling the hackahton with Design Thinking and inspiration from our SCRUM master!

Oh God, we coded like mad!

And we had heated development with priceless Tips and tricks from our Gurus (Mentors)

12:00:00 Time is up! Hands of the keyboards...
Our team is getting ready to present in front of the InnoJam judges and compete with all 14 teams

We WON InnoJam!!! After 36 hours developing and hacking away the victory tasted like ambrosia!

SAPTechEd FUN – Recharging before DemoJam presentation at the countless TechEd events.

Pressure and uncertainty watching all 5 teams presenting before us

Juanito under the spotlight 🙂

Yes! We made the Impossible Possible! We WON DemoJam 2016 !!!!

Thank you ALL!!!

Team Univation

while(hoursElaspsed < 30){ CODE! }

2016-11-16T23:23:45+01:00

The last InnoJam of the year kicked off in early November in Barcelona. We had 15 teams show up to show off their technical chops and complete for fame on the DemoJam stage! The event kicked off with a delicious reception (in my opinion it was the best food in all of InnoJams) and some intense design thinking.

Fueled by some local delicacies, the attendees did not wait a moment once they got their challenges to start designing their solutions. We had a hard time getting the teams to leave on Friday night. They all wanted to stay behind and keep working.

On Saturday, the teams were furiously building and seeking experts. I was so busy helping teams all day Saturday and Sunday that I forget to take some pictures of the coders! I enjoyed working with the different teams to work through their challenges with UI5 and help them create the solution they had designed. I worked with at least 6 teams throughout the 2 days, all with different questions and unique solutions. Some teams tested the boundaries of my knowledge as well! However, we worked together and were able to solve their issues, and I was able to learn some new things about UI5 in the process!

When it came to judging, I got to catch a little bit of each team's presentation, and there were so many great solutions! I am glad I was not a judge in Barcelona since I could tell it was going to be a tough decision and a lot of amazing solutions were going to have to go home.

When the finalists were announced, I was happy to see a good portions of the winners had used me as an expert throughout InnoJam! It was so rewarding to see that my guidance may have helped a team become a Finalist!

While I have helped teams at the other InnoJams, this was the first InnoJam were I felt integral to the event. Having joined SAP 4 months ago, I really enjoyed watching my self grow in my knowledge of SAP technologies and in my ability to assist others learn the technologies as well. The past month and a half of SAP events has really expedited my growth in the company, and I am so excited about what I will be able to accomplish now that I have had this experience!

Thank you to all the InnoJam participants for attending and helping me grow as an Evangelist! I hope to see a lot of you next year at InnoJam or attending a CodeJam!

Recap of the ESIGELEC InnoJam with the SAP University Alliances

2016-12-05T12:30:05+01:00

Date: 24-25 of November 2016

Location: ESIGELEC School of Engineering, near Rouen, France

Our host: ESIGELEC

The "École supérieure d'ingénieurs en génie électrique" (ESIGELEC) is a French school of engineers located in Rouen, and created in 1901.

It is part of the best French academic institutions known as "Grandes écoles" specialized in engineering and sciences and is a university level institution with the special status "Grands établissements".

It is under supervision of the Ministry of Higher Education and Research and jointly managed by the chamber of commerce of Rouen, the Society of Engineers in Electrical Engineering (from French "Société des Ingénieurs en Génie Électrique", SIGELEC), and a consortium of private companies.

Our partners:

From my point of view, "an InnoJam without a real business challenge is not an InnoJam".

This is why it was key for the ESIGELEC and the SAP University Alliances to attract the best panel of partners to the event from a consulting perspective with project organization and delivery skills to the end user with real business challenges and data.

In alphabetical order:

BearingPoint provided consultant and coaches to support the Design Thinking and Ideation process.

Bouygues Energies & Services presented a set of energetic performance commitments their company is addressing

Colissimo exposed as set of analytics innovation projects

Orange was present as one of the school stakeholder

Not to forget also the event staff that supported the students during the 36 hours with limited hours of sleep:

The ESIGLEC education team, led by Fadoua Bouzbouz

SAP University Alliances, led by Didier Petitjean and Chirihan Chergui

SAP Next-Gen Consulting & SAP Regional Implementation Group with Design thinking and technical coaches from different countries

And me as part of the technical coaches

The audience:

With about 80 students from 3 local universities: ESIGELEC School of engineering, "Ecole de Management de Normandie" and Le Havre University with either a major in "Big Data" but also in software engineering.

The challenges:

Spread across 10 teams, students were asked to solve one the following challenges around:

photo-metric measurements
- Data Quality
- Event Recognition
- Inventory recognition

parcel distribution
- Traffic forecast
- Claims Analysis & Control

The main goal of the InnoJam was to let students apply the "Design Thinking" process using SAP HANA Cloud platform as a foundation after completing the "ideation" phase and start using BUILD as a bootstrap for their development.

Some pictures:

Presentation of the event and the challenges (everyone is focused!)

The coaches calling up their teammates:

Students in action:

Morning gym for the braves!

How to bind young gen to successful companies using gamified learning

2016-12-05T23:49:17+01:00

SAP GAMIFICATION - How to successfully bind our young and powerful generation to us as a company

SAP SE, Isa Sammet, April 2017

Gamification is becoming more and more popular. But were you wondering what exactly “Gamification” means in a company context? Is it just about games? Is it just about fun? Is it just about points & badges? What is the value of “Gamification”? While listening to experts talking on gamification think by yourself on how important GAMIFICATION will become to bind our young and powerful generation successfully to our companies. Imagine this: In times where successful companies highly depend on attracting and binding young talents to survive the hard competition of being always on top ranking of innovative companies, it becomes more and more important to find useful and attractive ways to motivate workforce to educate on a regular basis. Gamification is one of the key methods to educate people using different intrinsic engagement elements. This is what we have done in SAP! We developed our own GAMIFICATION PLATFORM called “G-learning” (IGP). G-learning tells a travel story around SAP and its various global and diverse subsidiaries. Focusing on gamification elements, team-work, live progression, networking, and mixing online and live exercises, G-learning has become a frontrunner of attractive learning and networking methods at SAP. Watch these 2 around “G-learning” here and here.

SAP has got an extensive gamification initiative in their “Development Learning” organization, focusing on learning and networking topics on the one hand, but also running other successful initiatives like their own newsletter, security campaigns, etc. We do not stop. We innovate. Continuously.

What is G-learning?

G-learning is a gamified online open training platform

(Externally probably to be called IGP = Innovative Gamification Platform) for learning and networking topics dedicated to specific target groups. G-learning describes a virtual world journey where the learner/player has to solve different missions by visiting virtual SAP locations which display videos, exercises and quizzes on parts of the overall topic. By learning all topics in different (virtual) locations, learners/players acquire long-term knowledge of different chapters of one specific topic, allowing him or her to start as a “beginner” and finalize as an “expert” of the topic.

Motivation to develop a gamified online platform

An innovative gamified online Platform (IGP) in comparison with linear online courses and classroom offerings:

The new generation X/Y is no longer used to consume learning content in a one-way conversation (teacher in front) only. Team-learning groups and additional online consumption is a natural way to go for our younger generation which we want to bind to SAP. Not to lose young talents is one of the major challenges in successful companies who are fighting against not being attractive enough. On top, young generations feel attracted by games and their power. It would be a waste not to use the techniques behind games and bring them into a work-place environment.

We also need to consider that the attention span of learners is getting smaller and smaller and cannot be compared to the generation 20 years ago. Listening for a big part of 5 days in a classroom trainings becomes more and more impossible for the new generation who has got totally different skills than the ones we were used to.

Also, looking at the different skill levels and prior knowledge of participants, and also at time constraints and location dependencies, classroom trainings become less attractive than they were around 10 years ago. On the other hand, accessing specific knowledge just in small pieces, like YouTube videos may be inefficient as the learner won’t be aware of all knowledge dependencies. A combination of listening, exercising, grabbing small pieces of information fast is therefore necessary. Engaging a participant to consume intensive learning in groups and still be independent on time and location was one of the major priorities to develop our G-learning.

Our experiences show that traditional learning methods like intensive full-day classroom offerings did not always help the employees to retain their knowledge. Surveys and statistics showed that learners retained only 10% of their new acquired knowledge when they returned to their daily business and forgot another 50% of that one not using the acquired knowledge after 4 weeks. And this, even if the course contained one way conversation mixed with exercises.

Comparing G-learning to regular linear e-learnings the most visible difference is that learners do not keep engaged for a longer period of time due to the lack of bringing participants together and the missing engagement elements.

Very important for any type of education in a company is the fact that all employees cannot focus on learning solely for a longer period of time. They have got a job to do and it is important that while learning, they don’t have the feeling that coming back to their job will mean to them to get stuck into a work overload just because the fact that they spent some time on learning.

That is why it will become more and more essential that we find learning methods that contain: small pieces, allow collaboration, avoid long one-way conversation and listening and methods that cannot be consumed anywhere the user wants to learn (location-independent, mobile, offline) and possibly offer learning rooms that allow lonesome silent, concentrated and team learning. And on top, to make learning attractive it should contain elements that make fun and do not lead to the feeling that the employee merges into a complete overload of work afterwards just because he took time on learning. We should then not forget to motivate the learner constantly allowing him or her to fail as often as he or she needs to and give a good feeling doing that.

A gamified learning approach like our G-learning tries to cover all important aspects in a single learning format like: true autonomy in learning for the learner: online, location independent, deciding on how long, how intensive and with whom to learn (team aspect), covering all learning, success, and social aspects in one platform.

Challenges

G-learning tries to collect all relevant aspects around the topic avoiding that users need to harvest important information in other channels, like internal communities or external video channels. While this can be done for some of the topics, it is nearly not doable for other ones. One of the biggest challenges is to impress the user on the topic intensity. Trying on the one hand to cover all important aspects, but on the other hand not overwhelming the user with things that need to be learnt, but be focusing on some of the aspects instead.

Another big challenge we see in running G-learnings is that learning has never a top priority. Though we try to motivate learners continuously, some of them will give up because of too many things that need to be done on the job. This could be avoided in the future if a strategic direction of the company clearly stating official learning days or periods where anybody could be able to focus on learning and exchanging with others in the same period. It must become a top priority to educate workforce. Innovation and dealing with changes is only possible if the workforce is well educated continuously. We should focus on strategic topics on the one hand, but give also freedom to the learner on what he or she wants to learn additionally. Learn and fail as often as needed is one of the key aspects to foster innovation in a company.

Structure of G-learning

The world journey is open 24/7 and the learning path is not specified. While linear learning often fails due to lacking autonomy feeling of the learner, G-learning gives only suggestions on where to travel choosing all relevant chapters for the learner. The total learning equivalents at least a five-day full time training. The G-learning player normally learns for one hour a day, learning for about 6 or 8 weeks or for a much longer duration according to the learner’s needs. The learning path (opting daily for a city of his/her choice) is absolutely autonomous. A fixed frame (like often offered in MOOCs/ massive online open courses) unfortunately often does not help the user/player/learner to force discipline while job priorities were and always will be there. Therefore G-learning has got a completely free to choose learning path. While motivation can normally fall down in online offerings after registration and first attempts, we offer the learner several techniques to avoid stopping of learning but be motivated for a longer duration instead.

Comparing G-learning to classroom trainings where users are exposed to one-way conversation for a very long period of time and remember only about 10% of their acquired knowledge after 4 weeks, G-learning helps to constantly learn and retain knowledge by motivating players with different gamification elements and techniques and also support by experts when needed.

Topic intensity:

A G-learning can have between 5 and around 90 different cities with chapters on the overall topic. Meaning that a course with around 40 cities will have around 150 missions that need to be solved, as a city contains different formats of learning. This clear structure helps learners not to be overwhelmed with content that is suitable for beginners to advanced learners. On top, the videos are also small chunks that last only between 2-12 minutes to keep the attention until the end. The mandatory quizzes on content for a mission have got multiple positive and negative answers to avoid just clicking on the right answer. The level of expertise of the chapters are displayed by different colors of the city markers.

The feeling of freedom and the risks:

To avoid being lost with this new autonomy of defining the own learning path, we offer “get ready” pages as preparation to consume the coming content. Sometimes the get ready pages offer content that is a pre-requisite to understand the following one, sometimes it is a link to some other areas that need to be understood first, or, a third case, sometimes also some technical first settings that need to be done (like useful installations, etc.). These get ready pages are offered before they enter the world journey, but can also be accessed afterwards if information needs to be consumed again. The content experts are named and can be contacted by the users. Additionally the players have got the chance to exercise and present in front of peers and experts, which is presented in a later stage.

The goal of G-learning:

The aim of G-learning is to educate in a best way. Better educated and inspired employees, customers, partners become themselves more innovative, build better products and help to save the whole productivity process of a company. The strong focus on social “learning together” on top helps players/learners to even build better working relationships besides the one of learning. A cultural change takes place because the learner feels the autonomy, the pride and the assurance of being on the right track to become an expert in what he/she is doing.

The learner is the owner of his learning path. He decides about and profits from
When (24/7) he/she learns

How long (we suggest one hour a day),

With whom: a learner can learn alone but is suggested to travel in a team he decides on him or herself

In which pace (fast, slow), with only positive feedback (leaderboard, points, badges),

How much and What to learn: It is up to the learner to decide on how many different cities (chapters) he wants to travel to (according to his/ her needs)

Learn in small pieces: short videos, and each city has got another topic

The chance to be entertained on top: additional surprises make the learning journey interesting (hidden entertainment videos, cultural quizzes and motivating quotes to acquire more points).

The comparison to others and other teams (leaderboard) with only positive feedback (you got the mission) – no failure is being displayed and funny badges that can be acquired collated to the overall topic of a world journey

Have a visual live progression: individual progress is shown in differently colored lines – visible to everybody by clicking different filters and team bubbles live progression showing when a team has conquered a city

Unlock chapters to acquire further knowledge

Acquire levels of learning and Unlock chapters according to the levels of the content

Be surprised by announcements and new cities arising that have not been displayed before

Privacy protection and expert engagement:

Besides all gamification elements we are including in our gameful environment, we use known gamification techniques like having the possibility to travel anonymously by using avatars and fake names.

Motivate 4 different type of learners and satisfy curiosity and entertainment:

We are focusing on the fact that most learners are socializers (around 80%) and don’t want to learn alone for a longer period of time (example of lack of motivation: consuming long-lasting, exhausting e-learnings) and other learners count to the group of “explorers” (around 10%) who want to discover something on top. For this group we offer cultural quizzes to learn about other locations and the colleagues and hidden entertainment videos to be not purely focused on serious learning topics. Tackle unnecessary and not content-related obstacles give learners positive emotions. Positive emotions are being rewarded by a special badge.

Focus on intrinsic motivation:

A playful environment (like the world journey), accompanied with different surprises helps the player to activate the “intrinsic” motivation, which is crucial for learning. While “extrinsic” motivation (like prizes, points, badges, money, etc) helps to start or end a gamification cycle, and with this a gamified learning process, intrinsic motivation (like fun, belongingness, autonomy, power, mastery, self-knowledge, etc etc) helps the user to feel as owner of the learning. Feeling this intrinsic motivation will help the learner wanting to learn continuously.

Having fun is one of the intrinsic motivators that we adore from childhood. Levels like starting as a backpacker, going up to a caravaner and finally staying at a 5 star hotel, as well as funny badges motivate the players to connect their individual success with the story around it. City quizzes to focus on the cultural aspect of SAP and their big diversity helps to welcome anybody who takes part and is just an addition to fun and nothing to do with the learning, which is still in the focus, but is accompanied by other aspects.

G-learning forces high interactivity while providing a real-time feedback to a user. Successes are being shared among participants and are being encouraged. Examples are the feeds of an explorer finding hidden entertainment. That player’s live progression is displayed in colored lines from one city to another showing to which city they travelled and others travelled to supports the aspect of seeing real-time progresses and avoiding the feeling of failure. Progression is also one of the intrinsic motivators.

On top, fortune cookies, new cities appearing by chance, and the already described hidden entertainment are engaging elements.

Foster team collaboration while learning and the chance to solve a problem:

While many gamification projects focus on individual competition, G-learning mostly focuses on team learning and virtual collaborative motivation to finish as much of the world journey as possible. For this, adding much more points for “team journeys” than “individual travel” is one aspect, but offering “live challenges” on top is another one and one of our key success secrets of G-learning. These live challenges are exercises, riddles, challenges we give in form of an email or an announcement in G-learning and in collaboration rooms to teams who want to participate. These voluntary teams have got a time period of 1-2 weeks to solve the task and present it in front of peers (g-learners) and a jury (content providers, G-learning owners, managers) in a joint global call. This method helps learners to find out if the acquired knowledge can be proven by themselves. The pride participants feel in this call, while presenting their results to their peers and the jury, makes them willing to learn further and motivate others. A healthy loop starts where the learner is in the middle of the event and evolves to an expert teaching others. Additional points and badges are also being displayed to other in the live leaderboard of G-learning. With this concept we foster a team blended learning concept.

Our experiences showed that though we also allow lonely travelling on request, those users give up much earlier than they would with a team. Until now, almost every lonely traveler gave up and had other more important priorities than learning. G-learning shows that about 80% of teams stay until the end of the content consumption.

On top of all gamification elements we are using, we take into consideration that well working/learning teams impact their working style afterwards. For this, we offer teams the chance to conquer cities online in their world journey. By conquering cities, they do not only get special city badges and additional points, but can be part of the learning cycle. After conquering a city, the team needs to provide 3 new questions on the content by themselves and act as “teachers” to other teams who want to conquer the city after them. To conquer a city they have to prove strong team commitment, as one player alone technically won’t be able to solve 3 different riddles to conquer the city. Additionally, we help them to network outside their normal reaching points. Teams can be global and virtual and often help people to collaborate on the job afterwards and collaborate with people they did not know before. Team invites can be sent by the players themselves to join or form a team with a creative team name. The teams which conquer cities get visual big bubbles in their team color on the cities to show to anybody else their success.

The content providers are named in their city-videos. With this, learners have the possibility to contact experts with any questions they might have. And adding their own content when conquering cities they evolve from learner to the new group of experts. With these 2 team features (conquering cities and adding own content) and being able to present their exercise in front of peers we combine head with heart to achieve best results of people. And touching not only the brain, but also the heart is what makes memories unforgettable.

Learning, point hunt and 2 more type of learners:

To avoid “point” and “leaderboard” hunting which seems to be fun to players who are called “killers” but might de-motivate other players, we have included a time-rule in the lectures/cities. With this time rule we assure that the content is really being consumed rather than focusing of acquiring points. Nevertheless, we do not de-motivate the “killers” nor the “achievers” either, but motivate all 4 types of learners (socializers, explorers, killers and achievers). Or the target group “achievers” and “killers”, other than the 2 target group we explained before (socializers and explorers), we have included special rules to reach a city as “first” player. A first player gets more points, assuming that he or she really consumed the content and learnt.

Conclusion and further findings with regard to our G-learning:

Diversity is one of the key successes at SAP:

Our primary target group when testing G-learning internally, were developers with a majority belonging to the male category. Among our diversity aims at SAP, one key factor is to bind woman to technical professions and also foster women among leadership. To integrate this aim into our G-learning we have integrated a special “woman power badge” which is being granted to those teams who count at least one woman among their team-peers. Additionally, focusing on general diversity and cross collaboration, our employees in G-learning have the chance to form global diverse teams, independent from their working location, their project related activities or any kind of skill level or personality differences. Any age, gender, skill experience is welcome in our G-learnings and profit from the different levels of people in the small G-learning teams, which from our point of view should be composed of 3-5 people each.

Different possible business cases for G-learning:

Apart from the business case we are outlining before, G-learning can also serve as pure networking platform instead of a learning platform. The virtual locations can help to introduce people and teams and be displayed to other colleagues in their organizations. We used G-learning internally to introduce colleagues in teams virtually to each other before meeting for a live “summit” in a specific (non-virtual) location. Probably, G-learning will also be used in future for totally different topics other than learning and networking, that could be business operations, change of behavior, or marketing.

Learning should be accessible for everybody/ & include all single employees in one joint global topic training:

With G-learning we have proven that we can reach all those employees in (real) SAP locations which were not part of the learning cycles before. We have got small locations in SAP with single employees who are distributed all over the world. They could never profit from learning offerings, as no classroom trainings were offered for single persons or small teams, but were only offered in big locations instead. With G-learning we could reach people from 80 different global locations in one single training. Some of the employees never felt as part of the “big” company, nor the learning community either. With G-learning, they get to know people who are interested in the same topic and feel as part of a team.

Higher brain activity while having fun:

Also, different studies show that team motivation, the live progression and the fun aspects increase the activity of the brain while learning, let players keep their knowledge longer and avoid giving up very early. In trainings we offered for mobile developers, we had a rate of about 80% of all players who finished all content. While normal online offerings cover only 10%-20% of the people who registered at the beginning, but did not learn further nor finish the complete learning offer.

Bind generation X/Y to companies:

On top, with our innovative concept and platform we did not miss the point that the younger generation is used to consume content online and in team discussions. The plans for school education will focus more and more to go away from one way consumption (teachers in front), but focus on collaboration and exchange between the students. We in a company surrounded by adults should not miss the chance to change before it is too late to keep younger well educated employees in our companies.

Conclusion:

While our G-learning platform is probably one of the most innovative SAP concepts connecting gamification motivational aspects with team work, and internally developed without any dependencies on outside companies, we need to find out in the future if G-learning can also be used for totally different use cases than learning.

Our aim is to develop additionally other topics than a “world journey” with the same technical foundation. Furthermore, the aspect of integrating further crowdsourcing (the players as provider of information and learning options) is one of the visions we still have.

Challenges remain like having good developers around and management supporting that the employees have got freedom in choosing what and how they need to learn, from which a company always profits. The lack of time was always a major constraint for our players and colleagues.

G-learning Architecture:

The initial version of “G-learning” was a full custom development project, as neither internal nor external solutions were able to support our requirements or could not be used in a corporate network.

While G-learning is currently mainly used for learning and networking methods, we want to give other internal course owners, teachers, managers inside and outside the company to use our G-learning as a service without having the need to know about all technical dependencies and just using a template and changing this template according to their needs. This is what we will focus on in 2017.

G-learning is a combination of several distinct applications, arranged on a single Hana Cloud account. We use the SAP Workforce Performance Builder for learning content management and the Gamification Service on Hany Cloud Platform for advanced game mechanics. Everything else (here marked in blue) is G-learning itself, connected to the 2 systems just mentioned. The software is roughly distributed into the classical three layers of Data Storage, Backend Services and Frontend Applications. G-learning is built to serve four distinct actors: A Player, a Content Author, and a Course Admin as well as a Master Admin.

BLUE are all the systems that belong directly to G-learning

YELLOW are services on the Hana cloud platform

ORANGE are third party systems (Workforce Performance) that are deployed alongside G-learning.

Videos on G-learning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3LWarQJSWg , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzTCPOzEfHQ

Port of Antwerp from the Opendata challenge perspective - part 1

2016-12-09T07:08:04+01:00

For those who will be looking at the "Opendata" challenge for the Port of Antwerp - Logistics of the Future hackathon, here are a few tips and tricks if you want to load the data into your HANA environment.

First of all, you will need a HANA instance up and running. My advice: use the SAP HANA Cloud Platform trial platform! This is what we will be discussing in this blog.

Then we will look at how to upload CSV type of data in your HANA environment which we will discuss in part 2.

And last but not least, we will discuss a more sophisticated format like geoJSON (in part 3), and how to process the data from the JSON format (part 4).

But let's get started with HANA first!

Getting Access to the SAP HANA Cloud Platform trial platform

Here is how to register for a developer/trial account: Sign up for an free trial account on SAP HANA Cloud Platform

This should not take you more than 5 minutes to receive the account activation link and get to the HCP Cockpit. You will be assigned a "P" user id (unless you have an SAP account already and you want to use it with your "S" user id).

For example here is my HCP cockpit landing page. My HCP user id is "p1941109952" and my HCP account name is "p1941109952trial":

The distinction is really important, and you will see why later.

Get you HANA instance up and running

Once you are there, you can create your HANA MDC (Multi database container) instance, following this tutorial: Setup your HCP trial SAP HANA MDC instance

You can call the instance the way you want, just make sure you don't loose your SYSTEM password because you will have no way to retrieve this one later (or simply use the one provided: Welcome16)

This will give you access to a HANA container where you will be able to do your stuff!!!

The instance creation takes about 15 minutes, so relax, stretch your legs and have some water in the meantime.

Now just look at the URL for you page. Mine is:

https://account.hanatrial.ondemand.com/cockpit#/acc/p1941109952trial/dbs/mdc/requests

You can note that it includes my HCP account name and my HANA instance name (I called it mdc).

Get access to your HANA instance

Cool, now let's get back to work!

You can get access to this HANA instance using the SAP HANA Web-based Development Workbench from your browser or using Eclipse with the HANA Cloud toolkit.
Note that you will always need to start the SAP HANA Cockpit after the instance creation to at least get your SYSTEM upgraded with the proper roles and privileges..

SAP HANA Web-based Development Workbench

if you want to access the SAP HANA Web-based Development Workbench, go to the Overview of your HANA instance and click on SAP HANA Web-based Development Workbench like here:

The URL of the Workbench is:

https://mdcp1941109952trial.hanatrial.ondemand.com/sap/hana/ide

You can notice that it starts with HANA MDC instance name, then the HCP account name.

In HANA, the SYSTEM user is only allowed to edit Security settings and look at the Traces.

Our goal is to get access to the database "Catalog", but for this we need to create a HANA user with the relevant roles and privileges which is described the following tutorials: Setup a HANA user account.

This is what the "Catalog" perspective look like:

For more details about the SAP HANA Web-based Development Workbench, you can check the following documentation.

Eclipse with the HANA Tools

To download the HANA Tools for Eclipse, you can go here.

Once you have downloaded and installed Eclipse Neon, you will need to install the "SAP HANA Tools" additional Eclipse "software" using the "Help > Install New Software..." menu and the https://tools.hana.ondemand.com/neon as descibed in the Procedure section.

Once you have completed the installation, you can now switch to the SAP HANA Administration Console perspective using the "Window > Perspective > Open Perspective> Other" menu.

You can now add your HANA cloud instance using the "Add Cloud System..." drop down menu as displayed here:

Then you will need to input your details:

You can notice that we use here the HCP account name (with trial at the end), the HCP user name and password.

Then click on next to select you HANA MDC instance name (in my case mdc) and enter you HANA credentials (in my case I created a new HANA user named HCPPSTRIAL, but you can use your SYSTEM user as well):

This is how it looks like:

So, we are now done with this first part around the configuration and access of your own HANA instance on the SAP HANA Cloud Platform.

Let's now look at how to upload CSV type of data in your HANA environment: Port of Antwerp from the Opendata challenge perspective - part 2.

And off course if you have any feedback or idea to enhance this content, feel free to add your comment or simply share it if you liked it!

Port of Antwerp from the Opendata challenge perspective – part 2

2016-12-09T07:09:04+01:00

Now that we have our HANA instance up and running in the SAP HANA Cloud Platform trial platform as described in part 1 of this blog series, we can now start importing CSV like type of data.

We will be using content from the Antwerp Open data site: http://opendata.antwerpen.be/

Let's use the following dataset: Groundwater : the groundwater is high in the south of Antwerp and descends in a northerly direction.Under natural conditions the groundwater flows into the Scheldt and waterways, such as the Grand Sham and the Ostrich Beek.

This dataset is available in different format: CSV, JSON, XML, KML and MAP.

We will focus here on the CSV format which can be downloaded from here: http://datasets.antwerpen.be/v4/gis/grondwaterstroming.csv

Note that some the CSV files does only include a part (up to 20k records). This is why we will look at the JSON format in part 3 as it implements a pagination mechanism and allows to get all records.

Step 1: Download and explore the file locally

Open the following URL and save the file locally: http://datasets.antwerpen.be/v4/gis/grondwaterstroming.csv

Open the file with a text editor like Notepad++ or Textpad or any text editor that you are used to. It only contains 123 rows.

"id";"objectid";"geometry";"shape";"diepte_min_mtaw";"diepte_max_mtaw";"gridcode";"shape_length";"shape_area"

"1";"22817";"{""type"":""Polygon"",""coordinates"":[[[4.3485873207025,51.346769755136],[4.3478973692569,51.346440719645],[4.347314661279,51.346163674265],[4.3468624645733,51.345941143175],[4.3462929983102,51.345670422578],[4.3449967290939,51.34505534943],[4.3439950525301,51.344583140302],[4.3437740104511,51.344478188117],[4.3434659797483,51.344331225892],[4.3429218895802,51.344074533317],[4.34288534622,51.344057673192],[4.3409137263619,51.343117163245],[4.3403091531947,51.342826173675],[4.3390567402791,51.342233658706],[4.3328651550485,51.33922930772],[4.331886599349,51.338758269204],[4.3311485526292,51.338404419669],[4.330086644905,51.33790188229],[4.3293988266884,51.337573177119],[4.328771087475,51.3372736987],[4.3272616188114,51.336637146853],[4.326651121465,51.336389487602],[4.3264888590539,51.336315846364],[4.3263967478269,51.336274801953],[4.3263400946058,51.33619950784],[4.326180091714,51.335864649775],[4.3261597950016,51.335761703446],[4.3266226585268,51.335868319593],[4.3270050610938,51.335953694495],[4.3273957730855,51.336038936191],[4.32759124408,51.336073687632],[4.328288007978,51.336119150872],[4.3285004665499,51.335954202951],[4.3289469355724,51.335584442431],[4.3297332822139,51.334937988123],[4.331938082533,51.335103690544],[4.3334930195943,51.335202599348],[4.3348311758461,51.335296097318],[4.3357146784906,51.335365575973],[4.3358590121613,51.33544551828],[4.3371420013413,51.335573524889],[4.3385397653228,51.335712205965],[4.3392999786683,51.335789635393],[4.3394574359333,51.335680550615],[4.3397974422046,51.335465064817],[4.340791892702,51.33483459416],[4.3410679772104,51.334672316669],[4.3415907689501,51.334323863148],[4.3418414929863,51.334164247584],[4.3420541077191,51.334028629994],[4.342249447717,51.333890204008],[4.3424026273298,51.333786453157],[4.3426405789147,51.333621485258],[4.342972054204,51.33339278501],[4.3432609134663,51.333190481572],[4.3438771876297,51.332764938422],[4.3442979127241,51.332469543799],[4.3454452057513,51.331671384125],[4.3465415697138,51.330905228029],[4.3473022037807,51.330375773714],[4.3473405482524,51.330354712588],[4.347574992935,51.329928803729],[4.3477466201118,51.329609202486],[4.3479276784484,51.329271617588],[4.3481372006834,51.328893456378],[4.3483373195894,51.328522456603],[4.3485432639002,51.328141903156],[4.3487451551991,51.327771046674],[4.3488613576963,51.327565878624],[4.3488880659212,51.327471652806],[4.3490101755812,51.327061172735],[4.3491188249319,51.326690300427],[4.3492256645973,51.326320398377],[4.3492674139323,51.326170143619],[4.3492822050077,51.326104448175],[4.3488413130698,51.326413448761],[4.3454583087765,51.327564439105],[4.33870870381,51.329080050325],[4.3197710284714,51.329520711012],[4.315591971097,51.330327213735],[4.3094752307029,51.333745773119],[4.3058687602067,51.338716106648],[4.3036718652719,51.343158643902],[4.2978329511419,51.35120174591],[4.2949066636125,51.35714279553],[4.2921285130391,51.365206828188],[4.2888072942056,51.366814517309],[4.2818242091877,51.369352852897],[4.2777400030282,51.372461008749],[4.2762063877381,51.375555926289],[4.3279056730946,51.37558468686],[4.3284916501884,51.3743992826],[4.3325572590312,51.369722140851],[4.3311804387299,51.368369840803],[4.3260762008003,51.367624679135],[4.323509919768,51.366187670841],[4.3220757486114,51.36453314703],[4.3197169172929,51.360409362886],[4.319544615571,51.358579341762],[4.3213585707178,51.354909704834],[4.3248051867653,51.350214989784],[4.3283502486996,51.34901025715],[4.3331034485997,51.347943919169],[4.3464405367933,51.347386342772],[4.3485873207025,51.346769755136]]]}";"";"2";"4";"2";"21448.786259186";"12187823.977738"

"4";"22818";"{""type"":""Polygon"",""coordinates"":[[[4.3654619939525,51.354810747631],[4.3640409482971,51.356188478285],[4.3634128505739,51.357430346935],[4.3635748822165,51.357411937903],[4.3637193395027,51.357413911619],[4.3639270482673,51.357393696305],[4.3641145577698,51.357387384207],[4.3641997968326,51.357420102891],[4.3642441925927,51.357483720537],[4.3643298794717,51.357484846745],[4.3644207237189,51.357437384575],[4.3645606881384,51.357436265298],[4.3647284774256,51.357375467121],[4.3648462358112,51.357348219117],[4.3649274294383,51.357346540553],[4.3649949407966,51.357370270318],[4.3651122519885,51.357374767228],[4.3652609584006,51.357376604355],[4.3653782688091,51.357395418694],[4.365496704718,51.357310881313],[4.3655915937937,51.357297823934],[4.3657044118086,51.357299372141],[4.3658062491747,51.357277605472],[4.3659096493009,51.357296284204],[4.3660404109148,51.357309345888],[4.3661891305792,51.357334343617],[4.3662884975973,51.357341229856],[4.3665729050578,51.357324947718],[4.3666987420707,51.357372414218],[4.3667900297115,51.357287587619],[4.3668308563108,51.357279588835],[4.3668990452383,51.357223127658],[4.3670446091818,51.357144772649],[4.3671534084717,51.357091682116],[4.3672850609737,51.357039023053],[4.3673759155645,51.356999980254],[4.3675073521592,51.356953082172],[4.3681223837244,51.356100492855],[4.366934744751,51.355521335176],[4.3655071620833,51.35483247234],[4.3654619939525,51.354810747631]]]}";"";"8";"10";"5";"987.57980133301";"57314.693996644"

This first row is the header with the column names and looking at the data we can deduct that the data types are:

id	integer
objectid	integer
geometry	long text
shape	empty so string
diepte_min_mtaw	integer
diepte_max_mtaw	integer
gridcode	integer
shape_length	float
shape_area	float

We can also notice that the separator is the "semi colon" and the field values are enclosed by double quotes.

Step 2: Import the local file using Eclipse

First make sure you are using the SAP HANA Administration Console perspective.
Now, using the "File > Import..." menu, type in "Data from Local File" in the search box, then click on "Next":

Select your "Target System" and click "Next".

Then use the "Browse" button to select your file, change the "Field Delimiter" to "Semi Colon", check the "Header exists" and input 1 in the filed, check "Import all data", the pick your schema and table name.

Click on "Next".

On the screen you will have the ability to adjust the "Table Settings and Data Mapping" settings where you will have to select "id" as "Key":

You might to adjust the data type here, as they will be guess from the first hundreds of rows.

Click on "Finish".

Congratulations, your data has been uploaded. Hit "F5" to refresh the tree:

Now that you know how to upload a CSV file into HANA, let's get it a bit more ... sophisticated.

You probably noticed that the "geometry" filed was imported a Blob, but looked very much like a geoJSON piece of information which we should store into a ST_GEOMETRY column type and use that in the Spatial engine.

However, geoJSON is not supported by HANA out of the box, so we will see in part 3 how we can convert geoJSON into the "Well-Known Text" format: Port of Antwerp from the Opendata challenge perspective – part 3.

And off course if you have any feedback or idea to enhance this content, feel free to add your comment or simply share it if you liked it!

Port of Antwerp from the Opendata challenge perspective – part 3

2016-12-09T07:17:43+01:00

In the last part (part 2), we saw how to import a CSV file into HANA using HANA Studio, let's now see how we can take care of the geometry column.

If you want to learn more about geoJSON, you can check the following website: http://geojson.org/

if you remember, our CSV file (http://datasets.antwerpen.be/v4/gis/grondwaterstroming.csv) has a field named "geometry" which is a geoJSON stream.

As stated before HANA does support this format yet with the proper ST_GEOMETRY data type constructor or constructor. So we will need to convert this field to a “Well-Known Text” format.

I found a "Node.js" package to do this (only one), so I decided to build a little program to convert the field from the local CSV file.

First you will need to install Node.js from their website: https://nodejs.org/en/download/

Once installed you can open command line prompt and run the following command:

node --version

This will return the currently installed and make sure it's properly installed.

Now, run the following commands:

npm install fast-csv

npm install fs

npm install terraformer

npm install terraformer-wkt-parser

This will install the relevant packages to run the package.

You can now create a new file named 'convert-geojson-to-wkt-csv.js' and add the following code:

var csv = require('fast-csv');

var fs = require('fs');

var Terraformer = require('terraformer');

var WKT = require('terraformer-wkt-parser');



var writeOptions = {

	headers : true,

	quoteHeaders : true,

	quoteColumns : true,

	rowDelimiter :'\n',

	delimiter : ';'

};



var csvWriteStream = csv

	.format(writeOptions);



var writableStream = fs.createWriteStream("C:/temp/grondwaterstroming-out.csv")

	.on("finish", function(){

		console.log("All done");

	});



csvWriteStream.pipe(writableStream);



var readOptions = {

		objectMode : true,

		headers : true,

		delimiter : ';',

		quote : '"',

		escape : '"'

	};



var csvReadStream = fs.createReadStream("C:/temp/grondwaterstroming.csv");



var csvStream = csv

 .parse(readOptions)

 .on("data", function(data){

	data.geometry = WKT.convert(JSON.parse(data.geometry));

	csvWriteStream.write(data);

 })

 .on("end", function(){

	csvWriteStream.end();

 });



csvReadStream.pipe(csvStream);

The program will read the 'C:/temp/grondwaterstroming.csv' file and out the result in 'C:/temp/grondwaterstroming-out.csv' where the geoJSON field will be converted in a WKT format.

You can now run the following command:

node convert-geojson-to-wkt-csv.js

And you can now check the output file: 'C:/temp/grondwaterstroming-out.csv'

Let's now import that files in HANA Studio like we did in the last blog, but this set the geometry field to ST_GEOMETRY instead of BLOB.

But unfortunately this file contains some invalid polygons, and you will get the following error message: "Invalid polygon: multiple exterior rings".

So let's remove these polygons with holes now using the following code:

var csv = require('fast-csv');

var fs = require('fs');

var Terraformer = require('terraformer');

var WKT = require('terraformer-wkt-parser');



var writeOptions = {

	headers : true,

	quoteHeaders : true,

	quoteColumns : true,

	rowDelimiter :'\n',

	delimiter : ';'

};



var csvWriteStream = csv

	.format(writeOptions);



var writableStream = fs.createWriteStream("C:/temp/grondwaterstroming-out.csv")

	.on("finish", function(){

		console.log("All done");

	});



csvWriteStream.pipe(writableStream);



var readOptions = {

		objectMode : true,

		headers : true,

		delimiter : ';',

		quote : '"',

		escape : '"'

	};



var csvReadStream = fs.createReadStream("C:/temp/grondwaterstroming.csv");



var csvStream = csv

 .parse(readOptions)

 .on("data", function(data){

	var geometry = new Terraformer.Primitive(JSON.parse(data.geometry));

	if (geometry.hasHoles()) {

		console.log("found holes in " + data.id + ". let's remove the holes");

	} else {

		data.geometry = WKT.convert(JSON.parse(data.geometry));

		csvWriteStream.write(data);

 	}

 })

 .on("end", function(){

	csvWriteStream.end();

 });



csvReadStream.pipe(csvStream);

The newly generate file will have less lines, and should import fine with the same procedure as earlier (don't forget to change the geometry type from BLOB to ST_GEOMETRY).

OK, this is all great but as I said earlier these Opendata CSV files may not contain all the data (mostly the first 20k row), so you may want or need to use the JSON format from time to time because they may support pagination. This is waht we will discuss in the last of the series: Port of Antwerp from the Opendata challenge perspective - part 4

And off course if you have any feedback or idea to enhance this content, feel free to add your comment or simply share it if you liked it!

Port of Antwerp from the Opendata challenge perspective - part 4

2016-12-09T07:51:15+01:00

In the last part (part 3), we saw how to import a CSV file into HANA using HANA Studio where we converted the geoJSON filed into WKT, let’s now see how we can take care of the same content but in a JSON format.
if you remember, our CSV file (http://datasets.antwerpen.be/v4/gis/grondwaterstroming.csv) is also available in JSON format, check the following page Groundwater.

To learn more about JSON, please refer to the following links:

JSON From Wikipedia

Introducing JSON from json.org

So the link to our JSON content is: http://datasets.antwerpen.be/v4/gis/grondwaterstroming.json, this will only return the first thousand rows (and luckily this has only 123 rows, but I will show you how to implement the pagination).

We will also be using Node.js to convert the JSON content into CSV and take care of the geometry field at the same time.

I will assume from now that you have installed Node.js and the packages from the previous blog.

You will to install the following additional package using the following comand from your working directory:

npm install fast-csv

You can now create a new file named 'convert-geojson-to-wkt-json.js' and add the following code:

var csv = require('fast-csv');

var fs = require('fs');

var request     = require("super-request");

var Terraformer = require('terraformer');

var WKT = require('terraformer-wkt-parser');



var input_host = "http://datasets.antwerpen.be";

var input_path = "/v4/gis/grondwaterstroming.json";





var writeOptions = {

	headers : true,

	quoteHeaders : true,

	quoteColumns : true,

	rowDelimiter :'\n',

	delimiter : ';'

};



var csvWriteStream = csv

.format(writeOptions);



var writableStream = fs.createWriteStream("C:/temp/grondwaterstroming-json-out.csv")

.on("finish", function(){

	console.log("All done");

});



csvWriteStream.pipe(writableStream);



function transformOpenDataInCSVForHANA (json) {

	var i = 0;

	json.data.forEach(function(item) {

		var geometry = new Terraformer.Primitive(JSON.parse(item.geometry));

		if (geometry.hasHoles()) {

			console.log("found holes in " + item.id + ". let's remove the holes");

		} else {

			item.geometry = WKT.convert(JSON.parse(item.geometry));

			csvWriteStream.write(item);

	 	}

		i++;

    });

}



function getJSONOpenData (param_host, param_path) {

	var record_count = 1;

	// Start the request

	request(param_host)

		// first let's get the number of records from the first page

		.get(param_path)

		.qs(function () {

			return {page_size: record_count};

		})

		.expect(200)

		.end(			

			function (error, response, json) {

				if (!error && response.statusCode === 200) {

					var page = JSON.parse(json);

					record_count = page.paging.records;

				} else {

					console.log(error);

				}

			}

		)

		// now let's get all the records

		.get(param_path)

		.qs(function () {

			return {page_size: record_count};

		})		

		.expect(200)

		.end(

			function (error, response, json) {

				console.log("page_size " + record_count);

				if (!error && response.statusCode === 200) {

					transformOpenDataInCSVForHANA (JSON.parse(json));

				} else {

					console.log(error);

				}

				csvWriteStream.end();

			}

		);

}	

getJSONOpenData (input_host, input_path);

The program will read the data from the URL made of the input_host and input_host variables (in other words: http://datasets.antwerpen.be/v4/gis/grondwaterstroming.json), then will write the output in 'C:/temp/grondwaterstroming-json-out.csv' where the JSON properties will be transposed and the geoJSON field will be converted in a WKT format.

You can now run the following command:

node convert-geojson-to-wkt-json.js

Then you should be able to run the import just like in the last blog part.

A few more word about the pagination on this Opendata web site, they implemented it using a HTTP parameter named 'page_size'. The first page will return you the number of records.
This is why in the code I call twice the URL but in the first one, I just retrieve one record, just so I can get the total number of records and use it in the second call.
Obviously this may lead to some performance issue if the the number of record is really huge, and might require some rework on the way I call the the transformOpenDataInCSVForHANA function.

I hope this content will be helpful to the competitors of the Logistics Of The Future hackathon. I hope too see you here and there!

Again, if you have any feedback or idea to enhance this content, feel free to add your comment or simply share it if you liked it!

First SAP BASF InnoJam in Southeast Asia: reimagining business in a digital world

2017-01-16T10:46:20+01:00

First SAP BASF InnoJam in Southeast Asia: reimagining business in a digital world

Taking up the challenge to optimize the materials ordering process based on a business case from BASF Construction Chemicals

Six finalist teams from local Institutes of Higher Learning in Singapore participated at the InnoJam event organized by SAP and sponsored by BASF and the National University of Singapore

Top three teams received SGD 4,800 worth of gift vouchers with the champion considered for internships at BASF or SAP

Singapore – December 23, 2016 – Team Innobrew was the winner at the first SAP BASF InnoJam in Southeast Asia held from December 9-11, 2016 in Singapore. The winning team comprised of students from the Masters of Science in Business Analytics program at the National University of Singapore. Team Innobrew was among the six finalists that made it to the deciding face-off on December 11. The team’s winning entry was an end-to-end process management app for automated demand forecast, order and delivery tracking to payment, and freight cost estimation for the Customer Service Manager.

“With a mindset of enjoying the challenge, we did our best to understand the customer’s pain points, and learn from the best mentors from SAP and BASF. When teamwork kicked in, we knew we had made it!” said Yuwen Xu, Innobrew team leader.

Being the first in Southeast Asia, this InnoJam was one of key deliverables under SAP’s Next-Gen initiative which is a strategic youth innovation service where young talents engage with industry partners to work on real life challenges using design thinking and SAP technologies.

With one of the highest standards of education, Singapore was a natural choice to pilot this innovative concept and to promote collaboration between corporations and educational institutes. More than 80 students from local Institutes of Higher Learning signed up with six teams making it to the final face-off. The event was organized by SAP and was sponsored by the world’s leading chemical company BASF and by National University Singapore Business Analytics Centre.

"The InnoJam enables SAP customers like BASF to seed innovation into their organizations whilst simultaneously nurturing young minds and contributing to the development of our future workforce,” said Manik Saha, CIO SAP Asia Pacific Japan. “Together with the students, companies can use these platforms to experiment with innovative technologies which can accelerate their digital transformation.”

Andreas Rausch, Senior Vice President Global Supply Chain Shared Service Operations & Region Asia Pacific, BASF said: “I am impressed with the level of creativity and entrepreneurship presented at this InnoJam. We are proud to sponsor this event and encourage innovative impulses and new ideas from rising talents in academia. In order to keep our competitive edge, we continuously need innovative business processes and strong digital solutions.”

The contestants were posed with a real business challenge that BASF’s Construction Chemicals division is facing. The competing teams were given real, but anonymized data to analyse the current materials ordering process at BASF, ideate solutions and develop a prototype to address the challenge.

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 approximately 335,000 business and public sector customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably. For more information, visit www.sap.com.

About BASF

At BASF, we create chemistry for a sustainable future. We combine economic success with environmental protection and social responsibility. The approximately 112, 000 employees in the BASF Group work on contributing to the success of our customers in nearly all sectors and almost every country in the world. Our portfolio is organized into five segments: Chemicals, Performance Products, Functional Materials & Solutions, Agricultural Solutions and Oil & Gas. BASF generated sales of more than €70 billion in 2015. BASF shares are traded on the stock exchanges in Frankfurt (BAS), London (BFA) and Zurich (BAS). Further information at www.basf.com.

Media Contacts

SAP Asia Pte Ltd

Audrey Pereira-Loong

Phone: +65-6664-4498

Email: audrey.pereira@sap.com

BASF Southeast Asia Pte Ltd

Yoko Koike

Phone: +65-6432-3565

Email: yoko.koike@basf.com

Terence Guang

Phone: +65-6398-5155

Email: terence.guang@basf.com

Another successful SAP InnoJam @ the ESIGELEC!

2017-10-24T18:40:59+02:00

Just like last year (link), the ESIGELEC school of engineering and SAP partnered to deliver another successful edition of SAP InnoJam.

This year about 90 students from both Esigelec and Neoma Business School have risen to the challenge proposed by our partners.

The event took place at the ESIGELEC near Roeun on the 19th and 20th of October 2017 and lasted for 32 hours straight of design thinking, learning, coding, sharing, demoing and lot of fun and just a little bit of rest (but a yoga session for everyone).

All the ingredients were present to demonstrate how SAP Leonardo can support innovation in the enterprise!

Our host

The ESIGELEC ("École supérieure d'ingénieurs en génie électrique") is a French school of engineers located in Rouen, and created in 1901.

It is part of the best French academic institutions known as "Grandes écoles" specialized in engineering and sciences and is a university level institution with the special status "Grands établissements".

It is under supervision of the Ministry of Higher Education and Research and jointly managed by the chamber of commerce of Rouen, the Society of Engineers in Electrical Engineering (from French "Société des Ingénieurs en Génie Électrique", SIGELEC), and a consortium of private companies.

Our partners

Just like last year, “an InnoJam without a real business use case or challenge is not an InnoJam“.

This is why it was key for the ESIGELEC and the SAP University Alliances to attract the best panel of partners to the event from a consulting perspective with project organization and delivery skills to the end user with real business challenges and data/

BearingPoint provided coaches to support the Design Thinking and Ideation process

Aptar Pharma presented a set of challenges around smart industries, safety and sustainability using their machine sensor data (IoT), product quality information and machine learning approach

SOGETREL exposed as set of analytics innovation projects around smart cities and more precisely around "smart parking"

Orange was present as one of the school stakeholder but also with an interesting use case around big data analytics

The event team

Not to forget also the event staff that supported the students during the 36 hours with limited hours of sleep:

The ESIGLEC education team, led by Fadoua Bouzbouz and Sylvain Tenier.

SAP University Alliances, led by Didier Petitjean and Chirihan Chergui

SAP Next-Gen Consulting & SAP Regional Implementation Group with Design thinking and technical coaches from different countries

Interested by this adventure?

So, if you are part of the SAP University Alliances (or not) and want to innovate with your students around real business use case, let Didier Petitjean know!

And if your company is interested by SAP technology (yes, we don't just provide ERP systems at SAP ;-)), let me know and I will present you our SAP CodeJam program!

Design Thinking in action! (lots of post-it were consumed)

Now let's get the coding party started!

Our event team and technical coaches

And of course the morning yoga session:

Innovating at SAP: How SAP.IO winner Brilliant Hire found success by giving candidates a fair chance

2019-05-07T14:33:01+02:00

At SAP, innovation is built into our company’s DNA. It is what drives us to create new solutions and products, solve complex problems and ultimately, make the world run better. People at SAP may do different things across different functions and teams, but they often share similar motivations – we question the status quo and apply creative thinking to everyday challenges.

Brilliant Hire is a startup venture born out of this mindset.

(Left to Right) Hemant Shetty, Swetha PB, Appaiah Ganapathy

Founded by SAP Labs India employees Appaiah Ganapathy, Swetha PB and Hemant Shetty, the software allows prospective employers to evaluate a candidate’s skill and fast tracks hiring without bias using a digitalized prescreening process. In January 2018, the startup was awarded seed funding for incubation and became officially part of SAP.IO Venture Studio. What started out as a side project is now deployed internally in certain areas of SAP recruitment and adopted by SAP customers.

I spoke to Ganapathy to find out more about the winning team and their journey since then.

How did Brilliant Hire begin?

In 2016, Hemant, Swetha and I teamed up to take part in Innojam, an SAP coding challenge that encourages teams to innovate and build solutions. We built an application for visually challenged students to take written examinations without the help of a human translator – and won. It motivated us to take part in more hackathons. A few weeks later, we took part in another event at Labs India focused on HR challenges. We identified several problems in recruitment, notably the high rejection rate of candidates at interview stage and the great amount of time spent interviewing, which led us to create an interview bot. We won that hackathon too and was invited to join the SAP intrapreneurship program.

Brilliant Hire

How did that initial bot solution turn into Brilliant Hire?

The SAP Intrapreneurship program provided us mentorship on various aspects of a startup from ideation and validation, to acceleration and incubation. When we validated our initial idea, we realized that the bot was just a preventive solution, not a cure. The high rate of rejection stems from multiple challenges. One glaring problem was unconscious bias, where candidates are shortlisted based on criteria unrelated to their skills, for example gender, name and the university they graduated from.

That is how Brilliant Hire came about. It’s a pre-screening tool which assesses applications based on capabilities. Personal data of each candidate is completely masked so only the best talent are shortlisted for their skills and competencies.

How did you juggle your day job with the startup?

Between October 2016 and January 2018, we split time between our main jobs at SAP and our innovation project. We would meet in the evenings and weekends to catch up and brainstorm. After we got funded in January 2018, we could completely focus our time and efforts on Brilliant Hire.

What was your experience like in the intrapreneurship program?

It was a game changer for all of us. Before taking part, our day jobs were mainly focused on coding and development. But through the intrapreneurship program, we got the opportunity to wear different hats. We weren’t just developing the software. We were also responsible for marketing, generating customer leads and talking to customers. We were truly acting like a small startup within SAP. We’re proud to be first team from India to be funded, and the first team to secure a paying customer during the accelerate phase of SAP.IO Venture Studio.

The Brilliant Hire team

Since funding, how has Brilliant Hire grown?

Four weeks after we got funded, we finished building the alpha release of the platform and started piloting it inside Labs India and SAP North America. There were a few roadblocks along the way. In 2018, SAP committed to being GDPR-compliant globally, and we had to dedicate two months to test and solve any GDPR risk. The product attracted the interest of SAP SuccessFactors, and we started working on integration with the platform. By October 2018, we launched the beta version and launched Brilliant Hire on the SAP Store. We were also invited to do a demo at SuccessConnect 2018 and attracted the interest of several customers. We are proud that from this we have customers who are currently trialing Brilliant Hire.

What have you learned on this journey so far?

The most important thing I’ve learned is patience. I’ve also learned how to deliver a 3-minute pitch. Not everyone has time to listen to a long spiel.

Any advice to future Intrapreneurship program and SAP.IO participants?

There will be a lot of ups and downs on this journey, and it’s all about how you wade through those waves. Embrace the immense learning ahead. You will grow personally and professionally in ways you never thought possible.

How can SAP employees embrace innovation at work?

At Labs India, there are plenty of hackathons and innovation events, such as DKOM and Innojam, for employees to take part in. It’s also a great way to network outside your team. I used to only know people in my department, but since taking part in these events, I’ve met so many great people in the Labs India community and beyond.

Innovation at SAP is a Life at SAP series showcasing employee-driven innovation within SAP around the world. Do you have a story to share? Get in touch: cien.xu@sap.com

Interested in a career at SAP? Sign up for our Talent Community to be alerted of jobs and opportunities.

SAP Innovator Challenge 2019- The Journey!

2019-11-27T10:20:26+01:00

What is Innovator Challenge?

For those of you who are new to the Innovator Challenge:

The Innovator Challenge is an Innovation Academy which gives employees the chance to work with SAP's latest technologies next to their daily work. There is no better way to prepare for the work life of the future than taking part in the Innovator Challenge!

The Journey

Innovator Challenge journey started about six months back putting up the entries with a brief write up about the idea and the approach out of which some of the entries were selected by the organizing team based on the excitement and motivation each team showcased. The basic idea was all about getting your hands dirty and building a technical prototype. The program started with a lot of brainstorming sessions about the use case and a lot of fun discussions with respective teams. Every team was assigned a mentor to guide and provide support for any requirements.

The teams were also reshuffled to include a component of diversity.

Then the real journey of building the prototype began which required devoting around 4 hours a week for a period of 5-6 months. There was also a buddy team assigned to each team in order to review each other’s prototype and provide constructive feedback via regular buddy calls. There were interactive sessions to gauge the progress of the teams as well.

The Final Event

There was a presentation training organized for each team prior to the final event. The final event was spread over 2 days and included 19 teams presenting their respective ideas to the jury.

The teams were then judged according to the core values of the event: Learn something new, Team work, Hands-on technology enablement, Networking, Having fun.

There were 3 awards to be given each day of the final event- Best Prototype Award, Spirit Award and Crowd Favorite Award.

The Result

Out of the six awards presented on both the days of the final event, three awards were given to the Gurgaon Digital Core 2 Team :

Spirit Award- mMap your Route - Team Aavishkar (anurag.sharma90, gauravd86, akhil01, sukhram.bhamboo)

Crowd Favorite- ISU Chatbot – Team T6I (priyanka.sadana2, vaibhav.agarwal7, gauravd86 siddhartha.mishra)

Spirit Award- SAP Powered Transport Management – Team Techie Tribe (tarunpsc, aditya09077, sruthi.bollepally, p4preeti11, sushmita12)

Conclusion

This was an overall fun filled experience with a lot of learning and hands on experience. Thanks for organizing such a wonderful and well managed event!

Contributors:

tarunpsc

siddhartha.mishra