Together with eight other Vocational Training students from SAP, I had the opportunity to attend the last day of the Heidelberg Laureate Forum at the SAP campus in St. Leon-Rot on September 23. The annual one-week event was initiated by the Klaus Tschira Foundation, which was established by the same-named SAP co-founder.

During this conference, Laureates in mathematics and computer science convene with selected young researchers of these disciplines. Some of these ascending scientists received a grand from SAP.

We had the chance to listen to an inspiring lecture held by Shwetak N. Patel, who received the ACM Prize in Computing in 2018. He presented technological inventions from various scientific disciplines, that contribute to a more social world.

It was quite impressing how scientific inventions can solve huge problems of the world in synergy with digital enterprises, which reminded me of SAP’s aspiration to contribute to a more sustainable world through software solutions.

Developments, potentials, and challenges of quantum cryptography were outlined in a panel discussion by Vadim Lyubashevsky and Gregor Seiler, who are employees of IBM Research and the ACM A.M. Turing Award Laureates Vinton Gray Cerf, Whitfield Diffie and Adi Shamir.

Special thanks to Dr. Katharina Schäfer, SAP’s Global Head of University Alliance and the team of scientists giving us Vocational Training students the opportunity to engage and network during the coffee and lunch break.

My personal highlight? – A conversation with Vinton Gray Cerf, who is recognized as one of “the fathers of the Internet”.

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Dr. Katharina Schäfer together with us Vocational Training students

The speech from Dr. Katharina Schäfer in the Audimax