>> Commentator: Live from Stanford University it's theCUBE covering the Women in Data Science Conference 2017. (jazzy music) >> Hi, welcome back to theCUBE. I'm Lisa Martin live at Stanford University at the second annual Women in Data Science WiDS tech conference. We are here with Ann Rosenberg from SAP. She's the VP head of Global SAP Alliances and SAP Next-Gen. Ann, welcome to the program. >> Thank you so much. >> So SAP is a sponsor of WiDS. Talk to us a little bit about that, and why is it so important for SAP to be involved in this great womens organization. >> So first of all, in my role as working with SAP's relationship to academia and also building up innovation network we see that data science is a very, very key skill set, and we also would like to see many more women get involved into this. Actually (mumbling) right now as we speak we are at the same time in 20 different countries around the world, 24 events we have. So we are both in Berlin, we are in New York, we are all over the world. So it's very important. I call it kind of a movement what we are doing here. It's important that all over the world that we inspire women to go into data science and into tech in general. So it is important thing for SAP. First of all, we need a lot of data science interested people. You also need our entire SAP ecosystem to go out to universities and be able to recruit a data science student both from a diversity perspective, whatever you are a female or a man of course. >> Absolutely, you're right. This is a very inspiring event. It's something that you can really actually feel. You're hearing a lot of applause from the speakers. When you're looking enabling even SAP people to go out and educate and recruit data scientists, what are some of the key skills that you're looking for as the next generation of data scientists? >> This is an interesting thing because you can say that you need like a very strong technical skill set, but we see more and more, and I saw that after I moved to Silicon Valley for two years that also the whole thing about design thinking, the combination of design thinking and data science is becoming something which is extremely important, but also the whole topic about empathy and also, so when you build solution you need to have this whole purpose driven in mindset. So I think what we're seeing more and more is that it's great to be a great data science, but it takes more than that. And that's what I see Stanford and Berkeley are doing a lot, that they're kind of mixing up kind of like the classes. And so you can be a strong data science, but at the same time you also have the whole design thinking background. That's some of the things that we look for at SAP. >> And that's great. We're hearing more and more of that, other skills, critical thinking, being able to not only analyze and interpret the information, but apply it and explain it in a way that really reflects the value. So I know that you have a career, you've been in industry, but you've also been a lecturer. Is this career that you're doing now, this job in alliances and next-gen for SAP sort of a match made in heaven in terms of your background? >> I actually love that question, probably the best question I ever got because it is definitely my dream job. When I was teaching in Copenhagen for some years ago I saw the mind of young people. I saw the thesis, the best of master thesis. I saw what they were able to do, and I'm an old management consultant, and I kept on thinking that the quality of work, the quality of ideas and ideations that the students come with were something that the industry could benefit so much from. So I always wanted to do this matchmaking between the industries and the mind of young people. And it's actually right now I see that it's started kind of, what I at least saw for the last two years that the industries that go to academia, go to universities to educate or to students to work on new ideas. And of course in Silicon Valley this has been going on for some time now, but we see all over the world. And the network that I'm responsible for at SAP, we work in more than 106 countries around the world, with 3,100 universities. And what I really want to do now, I call it the Silicon Valleys of the world where you are mapping the industries with academia with the accelerators and start ups. It's just an incredible innovation network, and this is what I see is just so much growing right now. So it's a great opportunity for academia, but equally also for the industry. >> I love that. Something that caught my eye, I was doing some research, and April 2016 SAP announced a collaboration with the White House's Computer Science for All Initiative. Tell us about that. >> I mean the whole DNA of SAP is in education. And therefore we do support a number of entity around the world. Whatever we talk about building up a skill set within data science, building skill set in design thinking, or in any kind of development skills is really, really important for us. So we do a lot of work together with the governments around the world. Whatever you talk about the host communication, for example, we have programs called Young Thinkers, Beatick, where you go out to high schools or you go into academia, to universities. So when this institute came up, we of course went in and said we want to support this. So if I look at United States, so we have a huge amount of universities part of the network that I'm driving with my team. So we have data curriculums, education material, we have train to train our faculties, boot camps. We do hackathons, coach games. We do around 1,200 to 1,600 hackathon coach games per year around the world. We engage with the industries out to the universities. So therefore it was a perfect match for us to kind of support this institute. >> Fantastic. Are there any things that SAP does as we look at the conference where we are, this Women in Data Science, are there things that you're doing specifically to help SAP, maybe even universities bring in more females into the programs, whether it's a university program or into SAP? >> Yeah, so for SAP in our whole recruiting process we definitely are looking into that. There is a great mix between female and male people who get hired into the company, but we also, it all start with that you actually inspire young women to go into a data science education or into a development education. So my team, we actually go in before SAP recruiting get involved where we, that's why we build up the strong relationships with universities where we inspire young women, like we do at this event here to why should they go in and have a career like this. So therefore you can see there's a lot of pre=work we need to be done for us to be able to go in and go into the recruiting process afterwards. So SAP do a lot of course in the United States, but all over the world to inspire young women to go into tech. And SAP does what we see today all over the world we have huge amount of female from SAP, female speakers at all our events who stand as role models to show that they are women, they are working for SAP, and are very, very strong female speakers and are female role models for all young women to get involved. So we do a lot of stuff to show that to the next generation of data science of whatever it is in tech. >> Yeah, and I can imagine that that's quite symbiotic. It's probably a really nice thing for that female speaker to be able to have the opportunity to share what she's doing, what she's working on, but also probably nice for her to have the opportunity to be a mentor and to help influence someone else's career. So you mentioned accelerators a minute ago, and I wanted to understand a little bit more about SAP Next-Gen Consulting, this collaboration of SAP with accelerators or start ups. How are you partnering to help accelerate innovation, and who is geared towards? Is it geared more towards student? Or is SAP also helping current business leaders to evolve and really drive digital transformation within their companies? >> So the big (mumbling) I'm working on right now too is as mentioned you said SAP Next-Gen is called SAP Next-Gen Innovation With Purpose. So it's linked to the 17 U.N. global goals. We've seen from now in Silicon Valley when you innovate you actually make innovation web purposes included. And that's why we kind of agreed on in SAP why don't we make an innovation network where the main focus is that all the innovation we get out of this is purpose driven linked to the 17 global goals. Like the event here is the goal number five, gender equality. In that network we actually do the matchmaking between academia. We look at all the disrupted new technologies, experience the technologies like machine learning like what's being discussed a lot here, block chain IOT. And then we look at the industry out there because the industries, they need all the new ideas and how to work with all the new opportunities that technology can provide, but then we also look into accelerator start ups. The huge amount, and often when you're in Silicon Valley you kind of think this is the world of the start ups of the world. So when you travel around the world, that's we we looked into a lot the last two years. We call the Silicon Valleys of the world, any big city around the world, or even smaller cities, they have tech hub. So you have Ferline Valley, you have Silicon Roundabout in London, you have Silicon Alley in New York, and that is where there is a huge amount of gravity of start ups and accelerators. And when you begin to link them together with the university network of the world and together with the industry network of the world, you suddenly realize that there is an incredible activity of creativity and ideations and start ups, and you can begin to group that into industries. And that give industries the opportunity not only to develop solution inside the company, but kind of like go in and tap into that incredible innovation network. So we work a lot with seeding in start up, early start ups into corporates, and also crowd source out to academia and the mind of young people all Next-Gen Consulting project where you similar work with students at universities on projects. It could be big data science project. It could be new applications. So I see like as the next generation type of consultancy and research what is happening in that whole network. But that is really what SAP Next-Gen is, but it is linked to the 17 U.N. global goals. It is innovation with purpose, which I'm really happy to see because I think when you build innovation, you really think about in the bigger, the whole (mumbling) thing that we know from singularity. You should think about a bigger purpose of what you're doing. >> Right, right. It sounds like though that this Next-Gen Consulting is built on a foundation of collaboration and sharing. >> It is, it is, and we have three Next-Gen lab types we set up. In this year we built, last year, we are a new year now, we built 20 Next-Gen labs at university campuses and at SAP locations. And here in the new year more labs is being set up. We are opening up a big lab in New York. We just recently opened up one in Valdov at SAP's headquarter. We have one here in Silicon Valley, and then we have a number of universities around the world where SAP's customers go in and work with academia, with educators and students because what do you do today if you're in industry? You need to find students who are strong in machine learning and all the new technologies, right? So there's a huge need for in industry now to engage with academia, an incredible opportunity for both sides. >> Right, and one last question. Who are you, in the spirit of collaboration, who do you collaborate back with at SAP corporate? Who are all the beneficiaries or the influencers of Next-Gen Consulting? >> So I collaborate, inside SAP I collaborate, SAP have a number of, we have ICN, Innovation Center Network. We have our start up focus program. We have a number of innovation, the labs, a number of basically do all our software developments, so they're heavily involved. We have our whole go to market organization with all our SAP customers and industry, I call them clubs. And then externally is of course academia, universities, and then it is the start up communities, accelerators and of course, the industry. So it is really like a matchmaking. That's like, when people ask me what do you do, and I'm a matchmaker. That's really what I am. (Lisa laughs) >> I like that, a matchmaker of technology and people all over. So you're on the planning committee for WiDS. Wrapping things up here, what does this event mean to you in terms of what you've heard today? And what are you excited about for next year's event? >> So for me, one year ago when I heard about this year I kind of said this is important, this is very important. And it's not just an event, it's a movement. And so that was where I went in and said you know, we want to be part of this, but it must be more than just an event here. It's staying for the need to be much more than that. And this is where we all teamed up, all the sponsors together with ISMIE, and we said okay, let us crowd source it out, let us live stream it out much more than ever. And this is also what the assignment is now, that we to so many locations. This is just the beginning. Next year is going to be even bigger, and it's not like that we will wait to next year. We this week announced the SAP Next-Gen global challenges linked to the 17 U.N. global goals. So we are inspiring everybody to go in and work on those global challenges, and one of them is goal number five, which is linked to this event here. So for us and for me this is just the beginning, and next year is going to be even bigger. But we are going to do so many event and activity up to next year. My team in APJ, because of the Chinese New Year, have already been planned coming up here. >> Lisa: Fantastic. >> And we have been doing pre-event, (mumbling) events. So again, it is a movement, and it's going to be big. That's for sure. >> I completely can feel that within you. And you're going to be driving this momentum to make the movement even louder, ever more visible next year. >> Ann: Yeah. >> Well Ann, thank you so much for joining us on The Cube. We're happy to have you. >> Thank you so much for the opportunity. >> And we thank you for watching The Cube. I am Lisa Martin. We are live at Stanford University at the second annual Women in Data Science Conference. Stick around, we'll be right back. (jazzy music)