For many years now, SAP has been optimising its resources– from delivering intelligent technology products and services to sharing its internal talents– in partnership with like-minded organisations to accelerate the digital skills of the youth, the workforce of the future.
The German software enterprise is in a unique position to drive change at scale having a global footprint spanning at least 180 countries, serving 437,000 customers, touching 77 per cent of worldwide business transactions, and partnering with 58 per cent of the United Nations member governments. Specific to upskilling and equipping the youth with the 21st digital skills needed today and beyond, SAP has several programmes already in place to support this advocacy under Learning for Life, SAP’s inclusive education and workforce readiness initiative.
For instance, one of the programmes under the portfolio of Learning for Life is the openSAP platform, which delivers 250 massive open online courses (MOOCs) not only to SAP professionals and entrepreneurs but also to professors and students at zero cost. SAP is also supporting the Global Alliance of YOUth, a cohort of 20 like-minded global organisations collaborating to build the employability skills of the youth by 2022. In Australia, SAP haș partnered with the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation (AIEF) to implement several corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives that are geared towards empowering future Indigenous leaders with education and career training.
Building Partnerships to Bolster the Digital Skills of the Youth
In line with SAP’s focus on equipping the future workforce and in contributing to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for Quality Education (#4) and Decent Work and Economic Growth (#8), the tech giant has recently sealed a global multi-sector partnership as a founding member of Generation Unlimited (GenU). Partners from government, multilateral organisations, civil society, the private sector, and young people from around the world are brought together to work on GenU’s ambitious goals which include connecting secondary-age education and training to employment and entrepreneurship.
Kevin Frey, Chief Executive Officer of Generation Unlimited expressed his appreciation of SAP’s new partnership with GenU especially during the pandemic, which has disrupted education and irreversibly changed the labor market.
“Now, more than ever, we need committed private sector partnerships to invest in globally-scalable, job-relevant skilling and reform our education systems to ensure young people are learning the skills they will need to thrive,” he highlighted.
Embracing the New Role
SAP’s participation in GenU in partnership with UNICEF began in 2019 to provide quality education, life skills, and job skills training to young people in disadvantaged communities, preparing them for decent work and active citizenship. Now on the third year of their collaborative partnership, SAP’s new role as a founding member of GenU has been officially announced during the first Global Forum for Children and Youth, a three-day virtual event that connected children and the youth with leaders from UN, governments, enterprises, and influencers among many.
Under the new role, SAP will help GenU expand its current transformative education programmes in India, Turkey, and Viet Nam to a global scale. Harnessing the extensive network of SAP, UNICEF, and GenU, the partnership will be centred on developing standardised national curricula and comprehensive research to tackle pressing issues in secondary education as well as creating programmes for workforce readiness. There is an increase traction on integrated curricula that focus on life and social innovation skills, include Augmented and Virtual Reality learning platforms, and drive digital literacy for secondary schools and technical and vocational education and training (TVET).
“Children and young people across the world are key to developing solutions to solve our biggest challenges—from climate change to rising inequalities,” said SAP CEO Christian Klein. “We want every child to reach their full potential. Achieving this means more than just access to education—it means access to quality education.”
“We are proud to support GenU’s commitment to provide over 500 million young people with access to opportunities and training for employment, entrepreneurship, and social impact by 2025. And we invite others to join us to ensure a brighter future for the generations to come,” he stressed.
