NEWS
SAP Africa drives innovation
opportunities via universities
SAP Africa has announced the opening
of eight new SAP Next-Gen Chapter
universities in Sub-Saharan Africa
Second
place for e4
at Ecobank
Fintech
Challenge
T
echnology specialist e4 came second in
the Ecobank Fintech Challenge, hosted
in Lomé, Togo.
According to Andrea Tucker, R&D Head
at e4, there is a lack of a fully digital
onboarding solution across most banks.
“Onboarding customers is notorious for
its tedious nature, for both the bank and
customer,” she said.
“Although it is a time-consuming and
expensive process, it is legislated in every
country to complete a full KYC exercise on
each new customer. Even though we initially
developed the Virtual Identity solution
for the South African market, Ecobank
executives immediately recognised its
viability across the continent.
S
AP Africa has announced the opening
of eight new SAP Next-Gen Chapter
universities in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The main objective is to expand and
drive innovation opportunities with SAP
customers to help them accelerate into
becoming intelligent enterprises.
The following SAP Next-Gen Chapters
universities are tasked with preparing
the future purpose driven innovators for
the SAP ecosystem and to accelerate
universities across the Sub-Saharan
Africa region: University of Cape
Town; University of Pretoria; Cape
Peninsula University of Technology;
Catholic University of Central Africa;
UniversitéAube Novelle; University of
Botswana and University of Ibadan.
SAP Next-Gen Chapters operate as
lighthouse universities and multipliers
of SAP Next-Gen for universities and
10
INTELLIGENTCIO
its affiliated centers locations, such as
University Competence Center (UCC) and
Academic Competence Center (ACC). Key
deliverables for the chapter universities
include sharing best practices through
connecting industry partners with
academic thought leaders, researchers,
students, startups, accelerators, tech
community partners, purpose driven
partners, venture firms, futurists and
SAP experts to reimagine the future of
industries with SAP Leonardo.
“SAP Next-Gen Chapters will significantly
enhance the knowledge and skills levels
of participating institutions,” said Cathy
Smith, Managing Director of SAP Africa.
“The common pain points associated with
onboarding customers are greatly reduced
and the solution goes a long way in increasing
financial inclusion by making digital account
opening and fulfilment a reality.
“The Ecobank Fintech Challenge proved
invaluable to all when it came to knowledge
sharing, while also gaining a deeper
understanding of banking Africans. It
is wonderful to see that all companies,
regardless of size, have an equal opportunity
to participate in our country’s economy.”
Technologies such as mobile and digital
platforms featured in the top three winners,
while e4’s Virtual Identity has the potential
to enable the company to fast-track its
African strategy.
“This will also contribute towards
producing more relevant work-ready
graduates and the next generation of
digitally competent leaders who can
help our customers to accelerate into
becoming intelligent enterprises.”
www.intelligentcio.com