Board 109 : Leveraging the Tech-savvy Next-generation Talents and Hackathon Techniques to Accelerate Digital Enterprise Journey and Space-related Endeavors

Abstract

This paper elaborates on the formats of situational and project oriented education which being imbedded into university programs enable senior technology and engineering students to use design thinking techniques and develop design, project, and entrepreneurial skills while working on the real-life innovation challenges formulated by an industry partner. A non-exhaustive list of the mentioned formats is set out in the form of a conceptual model that describes an enterprise innovation process extended by the inclusion of academic thought-leadership and tech-savvy students’ insights in new products, services and business models development. Having completed a series of industry supported hackathons and design-thinking workshops, the authors provide an explicit description of use-case scenarios, key success factors, and implications for applying proposed model. The paper conclusion offers a list of benefits for using the model and further insights into setting up and running academia-business collaboration aimed at an innovation design and applied research rather than skills development.

As one of the academia-business collaboration examples, International Space University, which focuses on space exploration issues, should be mentioned. International Space University, a leading private, non-profit institution of higher education designed for students seeking to work in space-related fields, serves to peaceful, purposeful, and sustainable outer space development. Space related disciplines are a quickly developing field of knowledge and to cope with these changes Universities have to constantly adjust their curriculum to adapt to industry’s needs. However, studies still show a discrepancy in needed skill perceptions between industry and education. Literature on the topic also reports a number of existing barriers to establishing successful university-industry cooperation. In this paper, we try to address these problems by proposing a framework for establishing and managing the long-term educational university-industry cooperation. Bringing together academia innovative ideas with state-of-the-art software solutions International Space University and SAP Next-Gen Consulting notably contribute to development of the space exploration around the globe according to the 17 UN sustainable development goals.

One of the core SAP area is dedicated to the Space Exploration. Working on different levels, SAP Next-Gen helps, e.g. NASA, digitalize running systems and solve challenges the industry faces. For the second reason, in April 2017 a hackathon “NASA Space Apps Challenge” simultaneously occurred worldwide having lasted for over 48 hours and been attended by more than 25.000 participants and with around 24.000 community members joining the event online as well as 40 million people using the #SpaceApps hashtag. Thus, SAP is engaged in driving innovations and capacity-building in areas needed for space technologies which awakes interest in space-related endeavors among a broad public for leveraging the tech-savvy next generation talents worldwide.