SAP funds more ventures to improve One Billion Lives in Asia Pacific Japan by 2020

SINGAPORE – August 31, 2017 – SAP Asia Pacific Japan (APJ) today reinforced its commitment to improving the lives of one billion people across APJ through an investment of €1,000,000 to One Billion Lives (1BLives) – a crowdsourced, ground up APJ-wide initiative employing the power of SAP technology to deliver sustainable, commercially-viable social impact.

In its second year running, five employee-driven ventures were selected after a rigorous review process where teams pitched their business ideas to secure support and funding. In addition to getting access to seed money of up to €200,000 each, the five winning ventures will be guided by experts, mentored by the SAP.iO Intrapreneurship Accelerator Program, and coached by industry specialists to successfully transform their visions into social businesses, sustainably improving lives.

Scott Russell, President, SAP Asia Pacific Japan said, “1BLives exemplifies our role as an organization to improve the lives of the people in the communities we operate in. It is a unique space where SAP employees can act as entrepreneurs and develop sustainable social impact at scale around a cause they are personally passionate about. This is only the beginning and a catalyst for innovative ideas. We will support these teams with a robust framework, mentorship and technology as they engage with non-governmental organisations, partners and the broader ecosystem to validate and realise these ventures.”

The five ventures are part of an early stage social-impact incubation arm at SAP.iO whose mission is to incubate and grow the next generation of disruptive new businesses for SAP.

The venture teams are now working in the accelerate phase where they apply lean start-up methods to challenge ideas through rigorous iterations and strong mentorship. Subsequently, they build a scalable business in 1BLives and develop product-market-fit through initial implementations. The five ventures are expected to test their ideas and go live with minimum viable product (MVP) by the end of the year.

Maxime Pourrat, Managing Director, Winnow Solutions APAC, and a 1BLives judge commented, “I was impressed with the way these teams tried to engage to solve an issue. They have taken the first step to recognize that there is a problem and seeing that as an opportunity to solve this problem. It is great to see corporations like SAP rewarding employees to take action and to act as an entrepreneur.”

Another judge Grace Sai, Co-founder and CEO of Impact Hub and Partner at Hub Ventures Fund, added, “The 1BLives initiative is a great benchmark for big corporates like SAP and others to follow. The exploration on how to use a corporate’s own talent, capital and technology to better the world and attack some of the world’s most stubborn problems, is an admirable cause.”

Leveraging SAP.iO Venture Studio methodology, this year’s initiative has been bolstered with a stronger and more robust framework around objectives, key results, tracking of tranche funding and reporting, as well as rapid prototyping and validation. The ventures also have access to external experts and social enterprises to validate assumptions and provide a crucial real-world perspective.

The three ventures from 1BLives 2016 are at various stages of maturity. The ventures continue to look at new avenues to stay focused on their goals of improving lives by better understanding building resiliency in earthquake-prone regions; improving lives by increasing cancer drug effectiveness in India and improving lives by increasing access to health services in The Philippines.

“1BLives is a combination of the best SAP has to offer – our values, innovation, culture and ecosystem to deliver on a better Asia Pacific Japan for tomorrow. It is a key part of our strategy to realize SAP’s full potential in this promising region,” concluded Russell.

As market leader in enterprise application software, SAP (NYSE: SAP) helps companies of all sizes and industries run better. From back office to boardroom, warehouse to storefront, desktop to mobile device – SAP empowers people and organizations to work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively to stay ahead of the competition. SAP applications and services enable more than 355,000 business and public sector customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably. For more information, visit www.sap.com