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SAP, Apple and Imagine Dragons Collaborate To Support Refugee Humanitarian Project

This article is more than 8 years old.

With the refugee crisis a growing humanitarian concern for many countries, a collaboration between two huge tech companies and a band has pushed the crisis into the spotlight, mixing the world of enterprise tech with the music industry.

With hundreds of thousands of refugees in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, particularly across the Middle East and Europe, Imagine Dragons and SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) are joining forces to introduce the One4 Project to support refugee relief efforts.

Hints have been dropping all weekend relating to the #iwasme and #one4 hashtags on Twitter , and also pointers to the @One4Project Twitter ID which gave little away. Fans were understandably curious until Apple released the song, titled "I Was Me" earlier this morning. It wasn't until the band's front man, Dan Reynolds, released a video statement about the song  and the One4 Project involvement did it fall into place.

“The refugee crisis is incredibly urgent in terms of the number of vulnerable people being affected every single day. As a band we wanted to get involved and decided to partner with SAP and Apple to try and make a difference,” said Dan Reynolds, lead singer of Imagine Dragons.

The One4 project is jointly supported by Imagine Dragons and SAP, which grew from an idea 3 weeks ago by one SAP employee into reality through force of will and support from the SAP Board, Imagine Dragons and Apple. In addition to the donated proceeds from the song downloads, SAP is matching 10 cents for every iTunes download, up to the first 5 million downloads.

It's interesting to note that SAP’s global headquarters are in Germany which expects to accept nearly 800,000 refugees in 2015 alone.

While it's not the first time a major enterprise software company offers charitable aid to multiple causes, Salesforce for example having a huge impact with its Foundation work, its certainly the first time to my mind that such a company has collaborated with others outside of their own industry to bring the message to a wider audience.

Dan Reynolds via iTunes asking people to post their own pictures in support

"Whether it is by downloading this track or by other means, we hope people everywhere recognize the severity of the situation and find a way to assist these families in desperate need.” - Dan Reynolds, Imagine Dragons

Funds raised will benefit the UN Refugee Agency in their efforts to provide aid and assistance to the increasing numbers of people forced to flee their homes due to conflict and violence, many of whom continue to risk their lives crossing the Mediterranean Sea, according to the official press release from SAP.

Would be nice to see more of this kind of effort across the software industry as a whole rather than tech companies have big name bands on stage to play a set at an annual event to outdo their rivals. Bravo.

You can download the track from iTunes directly, all proceeds going towards the humanitarian cause, and updates will be forthcoming from the official One4Project Twitter account and the SAP Corporate Sponsorships page on their progress.

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