BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY MEDIA FOR AFRICA

Sierra Leone’s Kelvin Doe speaks at SAPPHIRE NOW

Sierra Leone’s Kelvin Doe speaks at SAPPHIRE NOW
Gareth van Zyl
By Gareth van Zyl, Editor, ITWeb Africa
03 Jun 2014

Sierra Leone’s self-taught technology inventor Kelvin Doe has addressed 25,000 delegates in a keynote for SAP’s SAPPHIRE NOW business software conference in the US city of Orlando.

17-year-old Doe is famous for building his own batteries using scrap metal and even creating a FM transmitter to setup his own radio station in the country.

Subsequently, he has been dubbed ‘DJ Focus’,

And at age 17, he is the youngest inventor ever to be invited for a fellowship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technolog (MIT) in the US.

A YouTube video of Doe has also been viewed over 5 million times, raising his global profile.

“I believe in innovation,” said Doe on Tuesday.

“If we can all innovate, we can make the world a better place,” Doe added.

Doe went on to say that he’s building a shoe charging device as well.

Meanwhile, Doe addressed the audience before SAP chief executive officer Bill McDermott explained in his keynote about how his company is working to simplify its business software.

McDermott, talking about the ‘SAP Run Simple’ approach, announced that his company’s Fiori user experience (UX) and SAP Screen Personas software are planned to be included within underlying licences of SAP software.

Existing customers of SAP will also get software credit redeemable against future software sales in light of Fiori, the company has said in a statement.

SAP Fiori was launched last year as a collection of apps with a “consumer-like UX to improve the user experience of core SAP software functions.”

“Increasing layers is killing companies,” said McDermott.

“A company should not be structured like an onion, and it shouldn’t make you cry when you peel it back,” added McDermott.

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