SITCHN 2012 – A perspective!

I had heard of SAP inside track before, but it had never been conducted in Chennai and somehow, I

could never muster so much enthusiasm to actually travel or even attend the event.

When I saw a mail form Satheesh 2-3 days after TECH ED, saying he plans to hold the SAP event in

Chennai, I was excited. I didn’t really have any expectation from the event, other than to meet people

from the community and touch base with some old friends.

Satheesh kept the momentum going by sending out periodical updates regarding, registration and

presentations. Mani was not too far behind; he sent many mails to create awareness about SIT Chennai

chapter and urged people to register for it.

Presentations were a whole other story – initially the response was slow, people only wanted to be on

the sidelines and watch what was happening, but once the number of registrations starting multiplying

the presentations numbers grew.

Two days before the event, we decided to put in our nomination as well, we had an idea of presenting

on Emerging Trends in the IT Industry on our minds, since the SAP TECH ED 2012. We felt SIT Chennai

would be the best place the present the topic. Veena and Mani were immediately on-board and worked

hard on the presentation, despite busy project schedules. Once the submission was done there was no

turning back J we wanted to present first, Satheesh was more than encouraging and this helped us set

the stage, for the entire day.

On 15th Dec, I woke up with butterflies in my stomach, but the minute I entered the conference room

where SITCHN was being held all that vanished. The people present there were warm and receptive and

were serious about their SAP J.

The event started on time with Satheesh flagging of the session with a welcome note, this was followed

by an ice breaking session of speed networking which was not only fun, but also Informative and quick.

We went on to have a safety update … and then we (Veena, Mani and Myself) started off with our

presentation on Emerging Trends in IT and what we can expect in the SAP space in conjunction with

them. Shortly following this, we had a session on Vocabulary maintenance by Suresh; this is very

essential for anyone going in for technical upgrades. At the end of the session we had a quiz and the

winners received small prizes from Suresh for being attentive in his session. Following that was a

MOBILE BI-POC in an hour. It was a very interesting session and got us thinking about the power of

technology and how it can push things beyond our wildest imaginations. After this we took a lunch

break at the IBM pantry.

We commenced the second innings of the session with Tools facility Management, by Ezhil Selvan,

which showcased innovation at its best and how much value even custom development could add to a

Customer. This was followed by a non-technical session on “Life of Pi – a function consultant “By Mani

Suresh, the idea of this session was for people to identify with others and this session did exactly that. At

the end of this session, everyone pitched in their ideas and expressed their opinions and what we could

do to make our lives better, as a community. This session was followed by a short break for tea, during

which we connected with the SIT of Bangalore.

Arun Bala (SAP Mentor) gave us an overview Introduction to SAP NetWeaver Gateway, it was a pleasure

for us to listen to an expert, like him. The last session was by Madhavan Rajan on X-steps, this was a new

topic on generation of Pi Sheets. This topic, evoked interest among the functional teams present there,

it’s not often that a pure functional session is incorporated in what is considered to be a tech dominated

crowd.

The whole program was insightful and informative and although, we were tired after spending our entire

day there, we still felt a sense of achievement, in being part of first event of SIT Chennai. We all went

home happy and enriched. Kudos to the Organizing team.

– Nirupama