Autor: Alexander Zeier

Prof. Dr. h.c. Hasso Plattner is a co-founder of SAP AG, where he served as the CEO until 2003 and has since been chairman of the supervisory board. SAP AG is today the leading provider of enterprise software solutions. In his role as chief software advisor, he concentrates on defining the mid- and long- term  technology strategy and direction of SAP. Hasso Plattner received his diploma in communications engineering  from the University of Karlsruhe. In recent years, he has been focusing on teaching and research in the field of business computing  and software engineering at large. In 1998, he founded the Hasso-Plattner-Institute (HPI) in Potsdam, Germany. At the HPI,  approximately 480 students are currently pursuing their Bachelors” and Masters” degrees in IT Systems Engineering with the help of roughly 50 professors and lecturers. The HPI currently has about 100 Ph D candidates. Hasso Plattner leads one of the research groups at HPI which focuses mainly on In-Memory Data Management for Enterprise Applications and Human-Centered Software Design and Engineering. Dr. Alexander Zeier graduated from the University of Würzburg in business management and successfully completed his studies in information technology at the Technical University of Chemnitz. He worked for a few years as a strategic IT consultant, before gaining his doctorate in Supply Chain Systems at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. He has 19 years experience with SAP/IT Systems and started working for SAP in 2002 as product manager with overall responsibility for the SCM Software, SAP`s first large In-Memory Application. Since 2006 he has been Deputy Professor of Prof. Hasso Plattner at the Hasso Plattner Institute in Berlin/Potsdam focusing on real-time In-Memory Enterprise Systems and RFID Technology. He is the author of more than 100 publications, including five books on IT and SAP. He is the Executive Director of the European Section of the MIT Forum for Supply Chain Innovation and Visiting Professor at MIT.