And we have kicked it off.
Another edition of the InnoJam NL has just started today!
Jan Koster: Welcome to the candy shop!
This year, the Innojam, isn’t just an InnoJam, it’s a SAP Inside Track Innojam (notice Inside Track in its name). Because SAP wants to use the SAP InnoJam name exclusively for the InnoJam events in the weekend before d-Code, it needed to be rebranded. As is was encouraged by SAP to call all community events SAP Inside Track events, we have decided to call this InnoJam the SAP Inside Track InnoJam Netherlands, or #SITInnoJamNL in short. More on the name-change was discussed in a recent SAP Hana Café NL podcast: http://saphanacafenl.podbean.com/e/s01e05-sit-innojam-nl/
What has changed
Apart from the change in its name, only a few things have changed:
- The SIT InnoJam NL is now an event that is driven by the community instead of by SAP. The major players in the organization are VNSG (the Dutch SAP User Group) and the SAP Community. As the event is taking place at the SAP Office in Den Bosch, it is quite obvious that SAP Netherlands is also co-organizing. However, instead of SAP taking the lead, the driving force it the SAP community!
- Another thing that has changed is that Innojam teams have a better chance of being elected to perform their demo on stage during the d-Code demojam, in front of an audience of thousands of likeminded community members. With that, they will receive brutally honest and usually deafening loud feedback through a HANA application called the “clap-o-meter”. Using a secret algorithm, the clap-o-meter is able to measure the audience's enthusiasm and engagement with the demo and the solution.
Winners of the SIT InnoJam will even have a greater chance to perform their song and dance on the d-code DemoJam stage!
- For the first time in the existence of InnoJam, it was possible to register for parts of the event. It was possible to register for the entire event, but it was also possible to register for the design thinking part only.
- A final, but in our thrifty Holland, very welcome improvement is that the organizers of SIT InnoJam NL have been able to lower the entry fee of the event, by asking sponsors to help out with some financial support or logistics. An overwhelming number of sponsors has agreed to help out. Thank you The Next View (main sponsor), SAP NL, Ciber, Superp, Intenzz, DesignersDNA, myBrand, Creetion, Vrumona, C/Tac, Phoqus, CGI and newFounders!
SIT InnoJam NL Sponsors
What didn’t change
- The SIT InnoJam will still feature a design thinking phase, which helps to get to know the team mates, to properly understand the business case and to actually put some thought into the solution. The jury will judge the final solutions based on desirability, viability and feasibility as well as technical aspects. Design thinking will especially help the participating teams with the jury's first three assessment aspects.
SIT InnoJam NL participants pasting a paper trail over the A2 during their design thinking process
- The overall structure of the SIT InnoJam also remained the same, starting off with design thinking sessions from 9am to 5pm. Followed by the realization, hacking and coding phase from 5pm till 3pm the next day. The event will be concluded with a presentation by all teams, assessed by a jury, which will elect a SIT InnoJam 2014 winner!
- Another thing that didn’t change is that the group of participants will be split up in 6 teams with an similar mix of developers, business specialists and students. All teams will be working on their own design challenge trying to make an indelible impression with the judges.
- Great food! Mrs. Penninkhof is preparing an delicious meal from the Malaysian cuisine.
The lovely Mrs. Penninkhof, always prepared to feed the hungry
Theme and tasks
This year’s team is “prevention of social isolation of the elderly”. Just after the kick-off, Hanneke Dam of VNG (Association of Netherlands Municipalities) elaborated on this issue, to get the SIT InnoJam participants familiar with the theme. The teams are dared to come up with innovative IT solutions based on SAP software, that offer help or support the elderly as well as institution around them, such as volunteers, general practicioners, municipalities, family members and charity organisations. As part of design thinking’s discovery phase, the various team would have the possibility to conduct interviews with domain experts to deepen their knowledge even further. Based on this theme, 4 subtasks were prepared, and each team is made responsible for one of the tasks.
Hanneke Dam of VNG explaining the the SIT InnoJam NL theme
Another record breaker
Noteworthy already about this SIT InnoJam is the massive turn-out. It seems that the Dutch Innojam is growing every year, both in attendance as well as maturity of the solutions delievered by the participating teams. Last year we had a breakthrough and were happy to announce that every single solution the teams came up with, actually worked! This year is already in the books because of the number of attendees. We have 68 attendees: 56 regular attendees and 12 students.
Another interesting fact is that all attendees are Dutch speaking. While we usually have non-Dutch speaking guests from Germany, we didn't have that pleasure this time. It might be that the Dutch have been a bit too intimidating during Worldcup 2014?. Anyhow, this allowed us to conduct the entire SIT InnoJam NL in Dutch, which I am sure is convenient for many of the participants.
Full house at SIT InnoJam NL
During this SIT Innojam we can also see a continuation of the collaboration with SAP University Alliances. SAP is very keen on seeing future members of the workforce to get familiar with SAP concepts and technology, of course in the hope that they will also apply their knowledge and skills in their future jobs. Michael Woidt, SAP University Alliances Country Manager Benelux mentioned that he is looking for more collaboration between SAP users and students. InnoJam is a great way to achieve that (here's Michael's Blog on this topic).
Michael Woidt, making the case for University Alliances
Fun!
It was emphasized that although these two days should be all about learning news skills and technologies, there should definitely be a fun aspect to it as well. It appears that some of the participants are already taking that very literally 
Ronald KonijnenburgandSven van Leuken having fun!
Kudos to Fred Verheul, Jan Koster, Denise Passchier, Claudia Bleijswijk en Rob van der Marck for putting this great event together!
On behalf of the Dutch SAP community: Thanks so much!