SAP Social Sabbatical in Bucharest: the roots of success!
During summer 2017, after a long process, the 12 selected top talents from SAP were informed that they will do their SAP Social Sabbatical project in July 2018. So, after a long year waiting impatiently for this, they finally arrived in Bucharest last week-end for a one-month project with 4 local organizations or social enterprises.
With its Social Sabbatical program, SAP goal is to support the accelerated growth of innovative NGOs (Non-Governmental Organization) and social enterprises. To reach their full potential and maximize their social impact, SAP helps them become best-run organizations by providing expertise and know-how.
SAP CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) program is, for the first time, in Romania and the 4 selected organizations and social enterprises are looking for professional expertise to address some of their critical strategic challenges.
These challenges will be tackle by 12 top talents from SAP from all over the world. One of the strengths of this team is its diversity: these SAP employees are from or working in Philippines, Ukraine, Czech Republic, US, Germany, Korea, Canada, India, Bulgaria, Brazil, Nederland’s and Dubai with 50% women.
On Sunday morning, a few hours after their arrival with important jet lag for some of them, the 12 team members started to know each other with different activities. The side objective of this was to start getting used to potential problems and unusual situations they could face in the coming weeks.
After this funny part, we went to discover the surroundings of the hotel and had a lunch with the local consultant who knows perfectly Bucharest and who will guide them during the whole month.
In the afternoon, the 4 sub-teams (composed of 3 SAP employees) started to work and discuss about their project, preparing the first day with their organization.
In the evening, we had a great lunch (with music and local dances) in a typical Romanian restaurant in the old city center.
On Monday morning, it was the official launch of the projects with the 4 local organizations.
After a presentation from Pyxera Global which coordinates the project for SAP and the SAP CSR introduction, we were captivated by the explanations from Techsoup Romania, Impact HUB Bucharest, Progress Foundation Romania and Policy Center for Roma and Minorities.
Mira, Soenke and Katie will work with Progress Foundation Romania around Code Kids, their main project. The goal is for the organization to manage this project more efficiently and to allow its planned expansion.
Impact HUB Bucharest wants to increase the quality of their service and give entrepreneurs the right tools to grow their business faster. Mariia, Tim and Christopher mission will be to achieve this impactful goal.
Maureen, Herrad and Harsimran will have the key challenge to explore new approaches for the sustainability and the expansion of the Policy Center for Roma and Minorities.
Techsoup Romania objective is to scale and automatize a solution/process that will allow the organization to reach as many (all if possible) the primary school teachers in Romania. Eliane, Peter and Wilson will be working on this challenging task.
On my side, as a mentor of the group, I’ve tried to provide advices, guidance and tips using my experience last year in India. My immediate objective was to give the tools and mindset for them to quickly and efficiently start their project because 4 weeks will fly extremely quickly and each day counts!
The energy and positive vibes from these 2 days make me think these 4 teams will reach their goals, will make a big impact on these 4 great organizations and on their ecosystem!
