The ASEAN Foundation and SAP partner to create positive social impact in ASEAN

The ASEAN Foundation and SAP partner to create positive social impact in ASEAN

·         Collaboration to focus
on areas of Education, Volunteerism and Entrepreneurship

·         Partnership to empower
youths within ASEAN with the skills needed to thrive in the digital economy

·         Strategic partnership
coincides with the 50th anniversary of ASEAN

JAKARTA, Indonesia — 9 May, 2017 — The ASEAN Foundation and SAP SE (NYSE: SAP)
today announced a strategic partnership to create positive social impact in
South East Asia. This joint effort will focus on areas of Education,
Volunteerism and Entrepreneurship. Through this partnership, the ASEAN
Foundation and SAP aim to support the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN) in building a cohesive regional community and deliver
inclusively-shared economic benefits by encouraging strategic and innovative
participation of youths and social entrepreneurs.

The Memorandum of
Understanding between the two organisations is a part of SAP’s Corporate
Social Responsibility (CSR) policy to equip youths with the skills they need to
tackle society’s problems and thrive in the digital economy; build the capacity
of innovative social enterprises that put young people on the path to
successful careers and build a skilled workforce for the IT sector with
training and workforce development programmes. Key initiatives that will be
executed under this agreement will focus on driving digital literacy to
support sustainable growth for the communities that the programmes aim to
benefit.

“A sustainable ASEAN
community lies in the hands of ASEAN’s youth. I believe that our joint
initiatives with SAP will increase the involvement of ASEAN youths in national
and regional activities to give them an opportunity to actively contribute to
the ASEAN community,” says Elaine Tan, the Executive Director of the ASEAN
Foundation.

Youth empowerment has
been a salient topic in ASEAN since the Declaration of Principles to Strengthen
ASEAN Collaboration on Youth that was presented in Bangkok in 1983. “The three
initiatives under the ASEAN Foundation and SAP partnership have touched upon
five priority focus of the most recent ASEAN Work Plan on Youth
2016-2020 which include youth entrepreneurship, youth employment, youth
awareness, youth volunteerism and leadership, as well as youth resilience,”
Elaine added.

“ASEAN represents not
just one economic community; it also represents one social community. As ASEAN
celebrates 50 years of deepening unity and rising prosperity this year, we are
excited with the opportunities that are in store in this Growth Frontier
region. With almost half of the region’s population being under 30 years of age
by 2020, there is a growing pool of talent that we can invest in and work with
for a better future. Through our joint initiatives with ASEAN Foundation, we
aim to help prepare young people for the digital economy and support ASEAN
drive sustainable socio-economic growth in the Fourth Industrial Revolution,”
said Mr. Scott Russell, President and Managing Director, SAP South East Asia.

He added, “SAP’s
vision is to help the world run better and improve people’s lives. This is our
enduring cause. In service to this higher purpose, we are investing efforts in
our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programme to equip youths with the
skills they need to tackle society’s problems and thrive in the digital
economy. I believe that this partnership will help scale our CSR efforts to
create greater reach and positively impact lives in this region”.

Under this agreement,
the ASEAN Foundation and SAP will roll out three initiatives in 2017 to address
the ASEAN’s economic, environmental, and societal issues, through three focus
areas of education, volunteerism and entrepreneurship.

Education

Targeting tertiary
students across all 10 ASEAN member states from any discipline, this data
analytics competition – “ASEAN Data Science Explorers” aims to enhance
awareness and appreciation of the ASEAN community amongst young people through
digital literacy intervention. By learning and using the SAP BusinessObjects
Cloud tool, the initiative encourages participants to deliver data-driven
insights for ASEAN across six United Nation (UN) Sustainable Development Goals,
namely (1) good health and well-being, (2) quality education, (3) gender
equality, (4) clean water and sanitation, (5) decent work and economic growth,
and (6) sustainable cities and communities. The competition will be organized
across all ASEAN member states with a regional final taking place in Jakarta,
Indonesia in November this year.

Volunteerism

In collaboration with
United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme and the Federal Ministry for
Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany, ASEAN Secretariat, ASEAN
Foundation and SAP along with other partners have launched the Youth
Volunteering Innovation Challenge (YVIC) in ASEAN. Under the theme “Impact
ASEAN,” the initiative supports young volunteers throughout the ASEAN countries
in their journey to catalyze youth-led innovation for social impact and
sustainable development. YVIC will provide entrepreneurship knowledge and
skills through national workshops. The national workshop winners will be
awarded micro-grants to prototype their ideas and later participate in the
regional mentorship orientation in Bangkok, Thailand. In addition, employees
from SAP will be volunteering their time to provide guidance and support to
refine and scale up the youth’s Impact Projects.

Entrepreneurship

Through structured
capacity building and mentoring initiatives planned through local and overseas
missions, high performing employees from SAP will support social impact
intermediaries through mentoring and pro-bono consulting. The programme in
association with several partners will impact close to 20 social enterprises
across Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand,
and Vietnam in 2017.