UTP Joins World Renowned SAP University Alliances Programme to Upskill Technology Graduates (11 March 2015)
Students from Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP) will soon be adding a new skillset to enhance their employment prospects – familiarity with software systems from SAP, a global technology leader with more than 282,000 customers in 190 countries. SAP’s software applications are designed to help businesses in a variety of industries ‘run simple’ and more efficiently.
The opportunity comes as a result of UTP joining the SAP University Alliances (UA) programme. Made up of more than 2,000 universities, 8,000 professors and 4 million students worldwide, the programme gives members access to resources from a market leader in enterprise application software, and the opportunity to engage with the wider SAP community. By joining the SAP UA programme, students at UTP will now get hands-on experience with SAP HANA (HAsso’s New Architecture), an in-memory computing platform, data analytics and other cloud technologies.
This partnership was officially sealed today in an agreement that was signed between UTP’s Vice Chancellor, Datuk Ir (Dr) Abdul Rahim Hashim and SAP Malaysia’s Managing Director Bernard Chiang.
“The signing of this MoA is another important milestone for UTP’s journey towards becoming a recognised higher learning institution. The MoA is a collaborative effort between UTP and SAP to upskill UTP Business Information Systems graduates in line with SAP’s UA Programme,” said Abdul Rahim.
Datuk Abdul Rahim further added that the MoA allows UTP to adopt the UA materials to conduct undergraduate courses related to the latest SAP technologies including SAP HANA, data analytics and cloud technologies. This initiative will foresee UTP as the first university in Malaysia to organise such a programme.
Students can attend a wide variety of open online courses to learn about the latest technologies from SAP. They will have access to HANA Cloud Platform where student developers can build applications on the real-time in-memory computing platform.
Meanwhile, SAP’s Chiang said that the company is extremely pleased to have sealed this partnership with UTP.
“Education and the development of skilled workforce are key components that would fulfil – and sustain – Malaysia’s goal of becoming a high income economy in the very near future,” said Chiang. Thus far, SAP has trained 5,000 students in Malaysia and is looking at increasing it to 3,000 annually from this year onwards.
He said that “millennials” will take over 75% of the global workforce in just a few years and that they demand a very different experience as employees, customers and citizens. These bright young minds will bring diversity and innovations to the hyperconnected workplace of the future.
“The SAP University Alliances programme focuses on building these early talents by preparing them for a successful career or entrepreneurship path,” he added.
“If a student were to go on to obtain SAP certification, they can expect to be one of the highest paid professionals in the field,” he said, citing a Robert Walters survey that showed SAP consultants being one of the highest paid professions in the IT industry with salaries ranging from RM120,000 to RM250,000 [US$37,255 to US$77,616] per annum.
