1. The Ideas Boom
A data driven approach to water scarcity
Madelyn Bayer joined SAP 12 months ago in our Auckland office straight from University as an
Industry Value Engineering Associate, one of four millennial female graduates who joined the IVE
team.
One of Madelyn’s main tasks has been to come up with a big idea that has the potential to solve a
global problem using SAP software. The idea had to be relevant, commercially viable and appealing
to a large group of people. Madelyn’s big idea focuses on how the aggregation of data can be used to
address the issues of water scarcity and food security. “There are many different groups collecting
data and working on their water
issues individually, including
government agencies,
conservation groups, regional
councils and industry
representatives,” says Madelyn.
With no background in IT,
Madelyn brought creativity and
innovation to her idea - not
shackled by the “normal way of
doing things”. As a result, the
emerging global water crisis is a
major challenge and, according to the World Economic Forum, there’s nothing more likely to have a
higher impact worldwide than this issue.
Madelyn’s idea is to create a standard platform for these groups to store and model their data, and
allow access to each other’s information. Cost has traditionally been a barrier, so Madelyn is
proposing that the platform could be a scalable resource for different groups to access. “There are
obvious benefits in these stakeholders having easy, centralised access to all this aggregated data to
help them plan, forecast and manage more effectively,” says Madelyn.
She believes SAP has the relevant resources, relationships and technology to bring this concept to
fruition. Her next challenge is liaising with SAP teams to work out how to build the solution. “Not only
is the issue a substantial one for SAP to tackle, it also has the potential for enormous commercial,
social and political value,” she said.
Madelyn represented SAP at a water conference in New Zealand recently and was the only
representative from an IT company. Subsequently, Madelyn is now on the committee, which is great
news for both SAP and the project itself.