SAP Africa will today be represented at SACLA (the southern African Computer Lecturers Association) 2014 event, which is being hosted by the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University at the Summerstrand Hotel, Port Elizabeth under the theme "ICT Education in the Cyber World".

Today, De Wet Naude from SAP University Alliances will speak to delegates about how businesses can and should be empowering millennials for careers in Africa and how online learning (or training in the cloud) will help enable learning in the IT sphere.

"SACLA's annual conference raises issues concerning teaching and research in ICT in Africa and this is a key focus area for SAP University Alliances and SAP Education", said Naude. "It is also part of SAP's overarching strategy to close the SAP skills gap in the ICT market whilst fostering co-innovation amongst universities and students who wish to pursue careers in this field.

"Traditionally, SAP University Alliances offered classroom training materials purely for academic purposes. Now, online training offerings have been developed and specifically tailored to the needs of university students and we aim to raise the profile and understanding of these offerings during our talk at the conference today."

Together with the recently launched Learning Hub (Student Edition) and the SAP Student Academy, these SAP Education offerings aim to include SAP certification curricula within the university sector through the provision of high-value, electronic learning content ultimately leading to SAP certifications.

"The benefits proffered do not only lie with the students, who will have greater access to education and hands on training visuals that will see them concluding their studies with actual certification that automatically makes them more employable, the benefits to universities are numerous as well," says Naude.

"To them, we offer a scalable and affordable e-learning offering, access to a wider set of SAP software skills for lecturers, no up-front risk and a wider choice of topics. The Student Academy and Learning Hub not only could but will change the face of ICT education in South Africa.

"All it'll take is a small step into the cloud and we're here to show them the way."

Existing or potential delegates are invited to seek more information by viewing the overview on YouTube or by contacting the team via any of the following mediums (de.wet.naude@sap.com or bernadine.jeffrey@sap.com).

For more information, visit the SAP Newsroom.