30 Interview
From Silicon Valley to Silicon Sanssouci In February 2011, SAP AG, the world’s leading business software company, officially founded its first Innovation Center in Potsdam. In summer 2013, staff will be moving into the new building located on the banks of Lake Jungfernsee. In close cooperation with the Hasso Plattner Institute for Software Systems Engineering (HPI) and the HPI School of Design Thinking, new collaboration models with partners and customers are applied at the Innovation Center. Specific projects are also being run with other research institutes in the Berlin-Brandenburg region. For instance, scientists at Fraunhofer IPK are now collaborating with SAP in the field of Secure Mobile Identification, one of the increasingly important challenges in information technology. FUTUR talked with Cafer Tosun, managing director of the SAP Innovation Center in Potsdam, about the center’s mission and future.
FUTUR: Mr. Tosun, in early 2011 SAP
FUTUR: How does this affect the architec-
they are not just tomorrow’s users; they
announced the establishment of the SAP
tural design?
also build tomorrow’s software. That makes
Innovation Center as the first of its kind
Tosun: Flexibility is crucial. Concentration
them extremely important for us at SAP
globally, here in Potsdam. The new build-
and collaboration spaces must be kept
and for the entire software industry. Their
ing is slated for opening in Q3 2013. What
in balance. We have even gone so far as
communication structures are much more
is so special about this new building?
to use wheeled walls that can be moved
networked. Social media platforms like
Cafer Tosun: Working closely with
and folded as required. The collabora-
Facebook, Twitter & Co are a natural part
Professor Kembel and his team at the
tion spaces are extremely transparent, as
of their daily lives.
d.school in Stanford, we put much effort
lots of glass has been incorporated into
into figuring out a design that would
the design. The benefit is twofold – glass
FUTUR: Why did SAP choose Potsdam as
reflect both our working style and our
acts as a sound barrier, but still allows
the location for the Innovation Center?
projects. One of the key features is a
plenty of light into the collaboration and
Tosun: One of the region’s many interesting
combination of concentration and col-
concentration spaces. The entire side of
facets is the scientific and academic land-
laboration spaces, allowing our employ-
the building that faces Lake Jungfernsee
scape, with renowned research institutions
ees to focus and interact when the need
is very open and bright. Sometimes we
like Fraunhofer, and its universities with over
arises. It is important for us to maintain
deal with small projects, sometimes with
140 000 students. There is also a growing
such dynamics. Communication is
big ones; sometimes a whole bunch of
number of thriving startups with whom
another key aspect of successful collabo-
people work together, sometimes it is just
we collaborate applying our in-memory
ration in distributed teams. One of our
one individual – this is where the big chal-
technology platform SAP HANA. SAP HANA
staff members researched that topic in
lenge lies in terms of flexibility.
allows for new innovative solutions to analyze and process huge volumes of data at
his dissertation. And our students have also evaluated it in a special project. In
FUTUR: Who will be working there?
lightning speed. This is a breakthrough con-
effect – we refer to this as a marketplace
Tosun: We are planning for 100 full-time
sidering the ever-increasing amounts of data
theory – we are going to set up a central
staff members plus 200 students work-
which are being produced in ever-shorter
venue for people to exchange their
ing in multidisciplinary teams, according
times. The global data volume roughly
views. We are thinking about a central
to Design Thinking principles. We treat
doubles every 18 months. The enormous
coffee corner.
students in exactly the same way as regular
amount of data that the Fraunhofer IPK
staff members. After all, as digital natives,
reconstruction team will process with its