According to the UN OCHA’s Global Humanitarian Overview 2022 report, a record-high of 274 million people across the world will seek emergency assistance next year, up 17{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} from 235 million in 2021. The article by World Socialist Web Site also stated that one out of every 29 individuals of the world’s 7.9 billion people will require assistance in 2022, up 250{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} from 2015. In order to provide fast and effective humanitarian aid, the United Nations’ humanitarian agency needed to find new ways to save time and resources. 

Previously, the UN OCHA group had to manually analyse the data it obtained from other relief teams or non-governmental organisations (NGOs) during humanitarian operations. To help address the challenges in coordinating tasks across all stakeholders, the group worked closely with Relief.iO in building the SAP 4W-Wizard tool. To increase visibility through the UN OCHA’s ‘4W-Reporting’, SAP 4W-Wizard gathers real-time information on the aid rendered by the NGOs.

The solution developed by Relief.iO — an SAP social venture committed to establishing a supply chain collaboration platform for disaster relief — leverages machine learning (ML) and conversational artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. Relief.iO is a part of the SAP One Billion Lives initiative, a crowd-sourced program that harnesses SAP technology to improve one billion lives by delivering a long-term, commercially viable social impact.

Running on the SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), SAP 4W-Wizard aims to help boost visibility, collaboration, and planning on a unified platform. SAP APJ Industry and Customer Innovation Advisor Carsten Boekholt explained:

“We have been aiming to prototype new ways that could help humanitarian response at SAP for some years. We designed the SAP 4W-Wizard as an innovative way that helps organisations like the UN to achieve addressing the big challenges we face today, be it climate change, natural disasters, or COVID-19.”

“Rapid access to useable data is crucial for aid personnel to respond accurately to crises and disaster situations, and to be prepared for what might happen in the future,” Boekholt added.

UN OCHA Delivers Smarter Disaster Response by Leveraging SAP Tool 4W-Wizard

By combining conversational AI, data analytics, and automation, the adoption of SAP 4W-Wizard in humanitarian missions across APAC was focused on assisting people in Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Vietnam, and Cambodia, as well as in the recent crises in the Philippines, Turkey, and South Sudan. In Nepal particularly, the UN OCHA team used the tool in developing a Humanitarian Response Plan for COVID-19, seeking US$83 million in life-saving support for over 9 million people.

Expounding on the impact of the SAP tool in the organisation’s relief efforts, John Marinos, former Regional Information Management Officer for APJ at UN OCHA, further shared:

“In one case, the 4W-Wizard tool from SAP helped us to reduce the time taken to process data, transforming what used to take a massive amount of effort and resources into something easy and quick to do. That makes a huge difference in our work – and by extension, to the people we support.”

Moreover, the program was created to reduce time-consuming manual processes and allow staff to focus on working with a proactive and anticipatory approach in preparing for disasters in the future. These include mitigating suffering for the most vulnerable and securing emergency funds, to name a few.

“The future of humanitarian response will be smarter – tapping on technology to help connect the dots, enable coordination, and mitigate waste and inefficiencies that result from manual reporting,” Boekholt concluded. 

The post SAP Tool 4W-Wizard Used by UN OCHA in Providing Humanitarian Relief appeared first on InsideSAP Asia.

Electronic waste (e-waste) in India is an emerging public health and environmental concern as the country becomes the fifth top e-waste producing nation after the U.S., China, Japan, and Germany. Along with the tremendous growth in the IT and communication sectors in the country is the exponential growth of e-waste coming from consumers’ electronic and electrical equipment upgrades.

Recycletronics, one of the new ventures to join the SAP.iO Venture Studio, has zeroed in on tackling e-waste in India by leveraging data and technology. Founded by Kiruthika S., Ajit Chandran, Rima Yadav, and Amit Sharma, Recycletronics was selected for funding from the partnership between SAP.iO program and SAP One Billion Lives, SAP’s intrapreneurship program focused on sustainable ventures.

Kiruthika S., Product Development lead of Recycletronics, said:

“The intrapreneurship program has let us develop our idea into a reality. We’ve been able to meet with fellow innovators, mentors, motivators, and coaches that have acted as catalysts to bring Recycletronics to life.”

As part of New Ventures and Technologies, SAP.iO Venture Studio’s intrapreneurship program acts as an accelerator of employee-led innovations that have the potential to future-proof SAP and its customers. Entrepreneurial employees that qualify for the program get an opportunity to work with real end-users and SAP experts as they build out, validate, and, eventually, accelerate their idea into a venture with proven market demand. 

Addressing E-Waste in India

To better understand and get first-hand information about electronics recycling vis-à-vis managing e-waste in India, the Recycletronics collaborated with the Chief Business Officer of Cerebra Green, an Indian recyler company that created the country’s largest, most sophisticated end-to-end e-waste recycling facility.

The Recycletronics team aims to build a marketplace for Indian electronics manufacturers and e-waste recyclers with the ultimate goal of remarkably contributing to e-waste management in India. Aside from propagating the knowledge of e-waste handling, the new venture is also advocating sustainability by creating a network for manufacturers and recyclers. When manufacturers and recyclers collaborate, the reduction of waste generation becomes more viable.

Kiruthika said:

“By creating a marketplace, Recycletronics isn’t just reducing e-waste. It will also increase the value derived from e-waste for companies and also aim at improving circular economy by bringing secondary raw materials back into the market.”

Furthermore, the new venture’s solution addresses India’s public health issue on e-waste. Chandran, General Manager and Business Development lead of Recycletronics stressed that hazardous materials of e-waste can cause serious illnesses.

“Recycletronics will help prevent these illnesses and help take e-waste to a better place,” Chandran highlighted.

Together with Recycletronics, SAP.iO Venture Studio also welcomed SavingsNow!, another new venture that focuses on sourcing-as-a-service automation. Both ventures have received €1-2 million in funding from SAP through the company’s grassroots Scouting & Acceleration program.

Ram Jambunathan, Head of SAP.iO Venture Studio, said:

“Entrepreneurs at SAP are in a unique position to shape the future of enterprise software. SAP’s distinctive understanding of business processes enables ventures like Recycletronics and Savings Now! to leverage data and technology to explore, experiment, and transform how business is done.”

The post SAP Intrapreneurs to Tackle E-Waste in India appeared first on InsideSAP Asia.

SAP 1BL Ventures—launched in 2018 in parallel with SAP’s business strategy—was first developed at SAP APJ under Adaire Fox-Martin’s leadership. The SAP Executive Board Member (who is reportedly departing the company at the end of the month) explains SAP 1BL’s purpose:

“Despite the challenges in today’s world, I believe humans are inherently good. This program gives SAP employees an opportunity to live large, and demonstrate that faith in humanity.”

The SAP 1BL Ventures program cultivates social intrapreneurs by offering the stability of an established business and the speed and innovative thinking of a startup. 

A look at SAP Global 1BL Ventures

According to Deb Kaplan, head of SAP 1BL, the challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 has provided greater motivation for SAP global teams to develop social and environmental solutions. Kaplan comments:

“This year’s teams have been put to the test to solve social and environmental problems focused on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and COVID-19 in a fully virtual environment. With a global pandemic displacing many teams from one another due to lockdowns and quarantines, these teams continued to push themselves to find new ways to work together, solve problems, communicate more effectively, and complete the journey that they started and refused to give up on.”

Over 2,000 SAP global employees participated in the 2020 SAP 1BL program. In this article, we’ll look at teams that presented the most developed and impactful social innovation ideas focused on addressing the growing issue of unemployment.

Social Recruitment

The SAP 1BL Japan team found a solution that proposes to solve Japan’s poverty issues by helping disadvantaged citizens find work through a customizable digital job-matching platform.

Led by SAP Value Advisor Expert Satoru Ota, the team worked with SAP Fieldglass and came up with ‘Social Recruitment Platform.’ The team is also working with Grameen Nippon to further develop the solution.

According to Ota, in the future, their team hopes to roll out the solution globally to poverty-stricken areas. Moreover, Ota aspires to use the venture to also help professionals whose industries may offer poorer visibility into open positions (such as artists and independent contractors).

Athena

Team Athena from SAP China hopes to create ways to improve differently-abled people’ lives through meaningful employment. The team collaborated with Taicang Inclusion Factory to build and deploy an intelligent production planning application. They are also working to develop more intelligent tools to help recruiters effectively find differently-abled individuals and also support individuals in overcoming personal barriers.

Jason Sun, a principal support engineer with SAP China, explained:

“We hope to really help these people improve their lives in every way.”

Sebenza

The Sebenza team decided to create a mobile-first job search approach to help blue-collar workers who still struggle to find available employment opportunities, especially with the challenges created by the current global pandemic. Through its partnership with the Southern Caribbean Islands of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, the team was able to engage IT students on the islands and identify ministries within the country with which they could further partner with.

The post SAP Global Teams Drive Social Impact with SAP 1BL appeared first on InsideSAP Asia.