The African SAP User Group (AFSUG) and SAP are teaming up to deliver the first-ever regional AFSUG SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) Hackathon. Finalists will showcase their prototypes at SAPHILA 2025, the premier SAP user conference for Africa, where the winners will also be announced.

SAPHILA, which will be held this year from 1 to 3 June at the Sun City Convention Centre, South Africa, is widely regarded as being the most significant gathering of SAP users, partners and technology enthusiasts across the region.

“The introduction of the AFSUG SAP BTP Hackathon marks a historic milestone, offering AFSUG members an opportunity to showcase their inventiveness and problem-solving skills, while leveraging SAP BTP, an innovation platform optimised for SAP applications in the cloud, to solve real-life business challenges,” says Koosh Panday, AFSUG’s SAPHILA 2025 Chairman. “SAP BTP brings together five key areas, namely application development; automation; data and analytics; integration; and AI capabilities into a unified environment.”

The AFSUG SAP BTP Hackathon invites AFSUG members - including customers, partners or joint teams - to submit creative, impactful use cases or projects that use SAP BTP components such as SAP Build, SAP HANA Cloud, SAP Integration Suite and ABAP Cloud.

Selected participants will gain invaluable hands-on coaching from SAP BTP experts, as well as access to exclusive resources to develop working prototypes for their business use cases.

Key hackathon milestones:

• Submission deadline: Hackathon candidates must submit their use cases for consideration by 18 February 2025.
• Finalist selection: Up to 25 entrants will be selected to continue to the next stage of the competition by 20 February 2025 and invited to build out their prototypes.
• Enablement and coaching: These teams are then able to participate in a series of deep-dive enablement sessions led by global SAP BTP experts, guiding them through the development process. Successful entrants will also have access to specialist SAP coaches.
• Use case submission: Prototypes must be put forward by 22 April, which will then be demonstrated to, and evaluated by, a panel of SAP experts. The jury will narrow down submissions to the final eight most inspired and viable options by 20 May.
• ‘Demo Jam’ at SAPHILA 2025: Finalists will present their projects during an exciting ‘Demo Jam’ session at SAPHILA 2025 on 03 June, showcasing their state-of-the-art solutions to the broader SAP community.
• Awards ceremony: The AFSUG SAP BTP Hackathon winners will be announced at the SAPHILA 2025 Awards Ceremony on the final evening of the conference.

Why join the hackathon?

“Not only will the selected teams be able to gain valuable hands-on learning and exposure to SAP technologies, but they will also be building real-world SAP BTP prototypes that can deliver tangible business value with the close guidance and enablement of global SAP BTP specialists,” explains Panday. “In addition, the finalists will have the opportunity to showcase their talent to the entire African SAP community at SAPHILA 2025, while exposing the local market to the transformative capabilities of SAP BTP.”

Olaf Winkler, chief product manager at SAP, expressed his excitement about the local hackathon, stating, “Having worked extensively across Africa for a number of years, I’m delighted to see the AFSUG SAP BTP Hackathon initiative come to life. The hackathon presents a fantastic opportunity for local talent to collaborate, innovate and create solutions with impact.”

“As a membership-based non-profit organisation representing SAP’s customer and partner community within Africa, AFSUG is always looking for ways to support and enrich local users’ SAP experiences,” adds Amanda Gibbs, CEO of AFSUG. “By embarking on this exciting hackathon initiative in collaboration with SAP, both organisations are underscoring their commitment to fostering innovation and collaboration within the African technology landscape. 

“We believe that the entire local SAP user community will benefit with outstanding learnings from real use cases,”  she concludes.

To be eligible for the AFSUG SAP BTP Hackathon, participants must meet the following criteria:

Hold AFSUG membership.

Register to attend SAPHILA 2025.

Ensure access to the relevant SAP solutions and BTP instances needed for their nominated use case.