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On the 100th Anniversary of the 1926 Slavery Convention, Call for Code AI and United Nations Human Rights Mobilize the World's Developers Against Human Trafficking

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 23:07:43 GMT

Austin AI Hub to lead the global challenge, launching alongside one of the largest international sporting events in modern history and culminating on the United Nations World Day Against Trafficking in Persons.

Geneva, Switzerland — April 30, 2026 — One hundred years ago, in this city, the nations of the world gathered under the League of Nations and signed the first international convention to abolish slavery — a promise made on behalf of all humanity.

That promise remains broken.

Slavery, as the 1926 Convention defined it, is the condition of being held under the powers of ownership — stripped of freedom, stripped of choice, stripped of self. A century later, that condition persists - although without chains, in contemporary forms and through new channels in all regions of the globe.

Today, more than 50 million people are trapped in forced labor, bonded labour, child, early and forced marriage, domestic servitude, worst forms of child labour, trafficking in persons, and other forms of exploitation, including in the digital space. Fewer than half of one percent will ever be identified. The systems meant to protect them have not kept pace with the networks that exploit them.

In response, Call for Code AI — together with United Nations Human Rights and Austin AI Hub — is launching Call for Code AI: United Against Trafficking, a global developer challenge designed to detect, prevent, and disrupt trafficking networks using artificial intelligence.

The initiative is proud to support the United Nations Voluntary Trust Fund on Contemporary Forms of Slavery — the UN Slavery Fund — the challenge’s official beneficiary, which for decades has delivered direct humanitarian, legal, medical, social and psychological assistance to survivors around the world.

The hybrid challenge launches June 11, 2026, alongside the opening of one of the largest international sporting events in modern history, and culminates July 30 on the United Nations World Day Against Trafficking in Persons. Designed as an annual initiative, the challenge will align each year with the UN’s World Day Against Trafficking to deepen impact over time.

Why This Moment Matters

2026 presents a convergence the world has not seen before: the centenary of the 1926 Slavery Convention, the first international legal framework aimed at abolishing slavery and the slave trade; and the emergence of AI systems capable of identifying patterns, predicting risk, and disrupting criminal networks at a scale no human effort alone can match.

This is not a moment to act because the timing is convenient. It is a moment to act because it is unavoidable.

"If AI cannot be deployed to protect the most vulnerable among us, it has failed its highest purpose," said David Clark, Founder & CEO, Call for Code AI. "If we free one person, this will have been worth it. If we help ignite the movement that frees thousands, we will count ourselves the most privileged builders of our generation."

Developers are not being asked to experiment. They are being asked to build AI systems aligned with international human rights norms and standards — at a moment where historical reckoning, institutional authority, and technological capability converge.

A Global Call to Build Where It Matters

This is a call to the world’s developers, researchers, designers, and advocates — not as participants in a competition, but as architects of systems the world urgently needs.

Fifty million people need solutions that do not yet exist.

The challenge asks them to build AI systems that:

Increase victim identification by detecting patterns of trafficking in persons for purposes of labour and/or sexual exploitation across borders, supply chains, and digital networks.
Prevent exploitation before it occurs by identifying risk at scale.
Support survivors with tools grounded in dignity, privacy, human rights, and long-term resilience.
Strengthen legal accountability , access to justice and remedy, and prosecution pathways.

“Human trafficking is a grave violation of human rights that demands coordinated and innovative responses. By engaging the global developer community through Call for Code AI, this initiative demonstrates how technology can be aligned with dignity, privacy, and accountability — helping ensure protection is strengthened rather than compromised.”

— Anwar Mahfoudh, Chief, Innovation & Analytics Hub, UN Human Rights

The question is not whether AI can help. It is whether the people who build it will direct it where it matters most.

Winning teams will be recognized on the United Nations World Day Against Trafficking in Persons — placing their work on a UN-designated platform visible to governments, institutions, and the worldwide developer community.

A Proven Platform, Transformed for an Urgent Crisis

Call for Code began in 2018 as a challenge — and became a movement. More than one million developers across 190 countries answered that call, producing over 50,000 solutions for disaster response, climate resilience, public health, and human rights.

Now the platform enters a new phase. Call for Code AI marks the shift from participation to deployment, from ideas to accountability — a platform engineered not just to generate solutions, but to ensure they reach the people and systems that need them most.

Each partner brings a distinct and essential role:

United Nations Human Rights embeds international human rights standards into the challenge framework, ensuring every solution prioritizes human dignity and rights as a whole.
Austin AI Hub leads hackathon strategy, design, and execution — bringing applied ethical AI expertise and direct collaboration with survivor-serving organizations.
The UN Voluntary Trust Fund on Contemporary Forms of Slavery (the UN Slavery Fund) serves as the challenge’s official beneficiary, ensuring the momentum generated by this work translates directly into support for the survivors of the very crimes it seeks to end.

“We are honored to collaborate with Call for Code AI and United Nations Human Rights on this challenge. This partnership reflects our commitment to ensuring AI is developed responsibly and applied where it can create measurable protection for vulnerable communities.”

— Mia Cheraghian, PhD, Director of Strategic Partnerships & Marketing, Austin AI Hub

Call for Code AI is no longer asking what technology can do. It is proving where technology must go.

Challenge Tracks

Participants may compete across three core tracks:

Anticipate & Disrupt — AI systems designed to detect and disrupt trafficking networks before they reach their targets.
Assist & Amplify — Survivor-centered AI tools supporting identification, recovery, protection, and long-term resilience.
Accountability & Justice — AI systems strengthening victim reporting of abuse and exploitation, legal processes, evidence gathering, and prosecution pathways.

Special Recognition: Art Against Trafficking — highlighting the use of AI in storytelling, media, and public engagement to shift awareness and mobilize action.

For full track details and technical requirements, visit: https://austinaihub.org

Registration is now open at: https://hackathon.austinaihub.org

Participants may compete virtually or in person in Austin, Texas.

Recognition with Global Significance

The United Nations World Day Against Trafficking in Persons is an official UN observance recognized by all 193 Member States. Solutions recognized through this challenge will stand at the intersection of technological innovation and international human rights standards — offering a rare alignment of institutional credibility, worldwide visibility, and real-world deployment.

Beyond the Hackathon

July 30 marks the conclusion of the challenge — and the beginning of sustained work. Austin AI Hub will continue building an ecosystem of AI innovation dedicated to combating human trafficking: advancing open-source collaboration, survivor-centered tools, and systems that strengthen prevention and legal accountability worldwide.

The hackathon is the catalyst. What follows is the sustained work required to confront one of the most persistent human rights violations of our time.

The crime that has outlasted a century of progress now faces a generation with the tools to end it — and a charge to confront the root causes that enable exploitation: poverty, discrimination, and the lack of access to education, decent work, and opportunity.

Timeline

May 1, 2026: Global registration opens.

June 11, 2026: Challenge launches.

July 30, 2026: Winners announced on the United Nations World Day Against Trafficking in Persons.

The initiative operates as a hybrid program, with online participation worldwide and in-person components hosted in Austin, Texas.

Call for Code AI: United Against Trafficking is supported by leading charities working to prevent trafficking and support survivors, including Allies Against Slavery, redM, Magdalene House of Austin, and Sentinel Foundation.

This initiative is independently organized and is not affiliated with or endorsed by any sporting organization or governing body.

About

Call for Code AI

Call for Code AI is a global developer platform founded in 2018 to build, test, and deploy technology solutions addressing the world’s most pressing challenges. Having mobilized more than one million developers across 190 countries and produced over 50,000 solutions, the platform has helped define standards for responsible, real-world AI deployment. United Nations Human Rights serves as Global Impact Partner.

United Nations Human Rights — Global Impact Partner

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (United Nations Human Rights) is the leading global authority on the promotion, protection, and realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all people. Operating in more than 100 countries on behalf of all 193 UN Member States, United Nations Human Rights works to advance dignity, equality, and justice at every level of society. As the founding global partner of Call for Code AI, United Nations Human Rights brings institutional authority and worldwide reach to a platform built on the conviction that technology, guided by human rights principles, can protect the most vulnerable and drive systemic change.

Austin AI Hub — Official AI Hub

Austin AI Hub is a purpose-driven artificial intelligence community based in Austin, Texas, advancing inclusive, ethical, and practical AI education. Through open-source collaboration and cross-sector partnerships, the Hub empowers technologists to apply AI for measurable social impact, with a sustained focus on combating human trafficking.

UN Voluntary Trust Fund on Contemporary Forms of Slavery — Official Beneficiary

More than 50 million people around the world remain enslaved today. The UN Voluntary Trust Fund on Contemporary Forms of Slavery brings relief to those whose human rights have been severely violated as a result of this affront to human dignity — abolished worldwide, yet persisting in practice. By awarding grants to civil society organizations, the Fund ensures that thousands of men, women, and children subjected to slavery around the world today receive humanitarian, psychological, social, legal, medical, financial, and other assistance.

Media Contact

David Clark

Founder & CEO, Call for Code AI

info@callforcode.org

Mahboubeh “Mia” Cheraghian, PhD

Director of Strategic Partnerships & Marketing, Austin AI Hub

team@austinaihub.com

2026 Call for Code Introduces AI Platform to Support Developers Building Trusted AI at Scale

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 14:16:00 GMT

Extending a proven global developer movement into the era of AI-native systems and institutional trust.

Boulder, CO — February 11, 2026 — Call for Code, the global developer initiative founded in 2018 by social impact entrepreneur David Clark, today announced the launch of Call for Code AI — expanding its mission into the era of AI-native systems and responsible, real-world AI deployment.

As artificial intelligence becomes foundational to global infrastructure, the defining challenge shifts from capability to trust — and from experimentation to accountable deployment.

Over the past eight years, Call for Code has grown into one of the world’s largest sustained developer movements for social impact. The platform has engaged more than one million developers across more than 190 countries, resulting in over 50,000 applications addressing disaster response, climate resilience, public health, sustainability, equitable access to resources, and human rights.

Established in 2018 in collaboration with IBM as Founding Partner, alongside United Nations Human Rights as Global Impact Partner and the Linux Foundation as Program Affiliate, Call for Code was structured under open standards and institutional governance frameworks designed to ensure neutrality, accountability, and real-world readiness.

IBM’s institutional commitment — exceeding $55 million in ecosystem investment in the first year alone — helped establish operational credibility at global scale. Integration of enterprise AI platforms during that foundational period elevated technical standards and demonstrated how advanced AI systems could be responsibly deployed in real-world environments. With that foundation established, the platform now enters its next phase.

AI as Core Infrastructure

As artificial intelligence becomes foundational infrastructure across industries, the defining question shifts from what AI can do to how it will be governed, deployed, and trusted at global scale.

Advanced AI systems now influence decision-making in healthcare, climate modeling, financial systems, public services, and critical infrastructure. Ensuring these systems are tested in transparent, real-world environments — where performance, safety, accountability, and ethical integrity can be measured — is essential to sustaining long-term public trust.

Call for Code AI extends the platform’s original mandate into this next phase — recognizing and elevating systems that demonstrate measurable impact, responsible deployment, scalability, and alignment with human rights and institutional accountability.

Over the next decade, Call for Code AI is designed to serve as a neutral, globally aligned reference platform — convening frontier AI companies, institutions, and developers in real-world testing environments to define and elevate standards for responsible AI deployment. The platform is designed to function as a global proving ground, where performance, safety, and accountability can be evaluated openly and at scale.

Statement from David Clark, Founder of Call for Code

“Call for Code was built through extraordinary collaboration. IBM’s leadership as Founding Partner, alongside UN Human Rights and the Linux Foundation, helped establish a global platform grounded in enterprise discipline, technical rigor, and real-world deployment. Over eight years, that foundation enabled developer innovation to operate at global scale.

We are deeply grateful for that chapter. As AI becomes embedded in critical systems worldwide, we carry those standards forward — ensuring responsibility and accountability scale alongside intelligence. The future of AI will not be defined by capability alone, but by the trust institutions are willing to earn.”

Platform at Scale Call for Code AI builds upon:

More than one million developers engaged worldwide
190+ countries represented
50,000+ applications built
$55M+ invested in ecosystem development and solution deployment
$2M+ awarded in prize funding to winning solutions
Open-source stewardship through the Linux Foundation
Formal collaboration with United Nations Human Rights, embedding human-rights-centered standards into global technology development and deployment
Amplified by global cultural leaders to more than 2.5 billion cumulative impressions worldwide

Defining the Next Chapter of Responsible AI

Call for Code AI will expand its framework to recognize AI systems across domains including medicine, climate science, public health, justice, infrastructure resilience, and human expression.

The platform enters this phase not as a reset, but as the continued evolution of a globally proven system — with developers at its center and governance embedded in its architecture.

As AI accelerates across industries, the platforms capable of bridging frontier innovation with institutional trust will define the next chapter of technological progress. Call for Code AI is built to serve that role.

Media Inquiries
Call for Code AI
info@callforcode.org

Call for Code Global Challenge Winners Take on a Variety of Humanitarian Issues with AI Solutions

Thu, 11 Dec 2025 21:37:00 GMT

Winning teams from multiple universities in Kenya, SBA Info Solutions, and Unisys developed AI-powered solutions to address social and humanitarian issues to make a real difference

GENEVA, Switzerland, Dec. 10, 2025 – Today, in alignment with United Nations Human Rights Day, and announced live at the RightsX Summit 2025: Advancing Human Rights in the Digital Age at the historic Palais Wilson in Geneva, Call for Code, the largest tech-for-good initiative of its kind driven by creator David Clark Cause, Founding Partner IBM (NYSE: IBM), Global Impact Partner United Nations Human Rights, and Program Affiliate the Linux Foundation announced the winners of the annual Call for Code Global Challenge.

Developers and problem solvers across the globe were invited to create AI-powered technology projects that address a variety of social and humanitarian issues during five separate “hackathon” events that were held throughout the year. Winners from each event moved on to judging for the final grand prizes. This year’s top prizes went to teams DuniAfrika, Young & Hungry, and Agents FDRK, which used IBM watsonx AI technologies and AI models like IBM Granite, to help address issues such as decent work and economic growth, clean water, and industry, innovation, and infrastructure challenges.

“Since its inception, Call for Code has shown what’s possible when humanity and technology pull in the same direction,” said David Clark, founder and CEO of Call for Code. “This year’s Global Challenge—focused on the UN Sustainable Development Goals—proves that open, responsible innovation can serve the common good at scale. As we mark UN Human Rights Day, we salute our Founding Partner IBM, our Global Action Partner UN Human Rights, and our Affiliate Partner the Linux Foundation—and the developers in nearly every nation who are building a more just, sustainable, and equitable future one line of code at a time.”

2025 Call for Code Global Challenge Winning Teams
The Grand Prize-winning team will receive $50,000 USD, as well as solution implementation support from the Call for Code ecosystem, as applicable. The runners-up will receive $25,000 USD and $10,000 USD. All three teams have the opportunity to receive assistance from the Linux Foundation to open source their application.

The 2025 Call for Code Global Challenge Grand Prize Winner is DuniAfrika , a group of students from Jomo Kenyatta University, Kirinyaga University, and the University of Nairobi, who used IBM Granite to create an AI-powered safety assistant designed to help informal sector construction and trade workers access the equipment and training they need to stay safe on the job for the “Decent work and economic growth challenge.” As the top scoring university team, they are also the recipients of the 2025 University Grant, receiving $30,000 USD for their schools.

The 2025 Call for Code Global Challenge First Runner-up is Young & Hungry . The team from SBA Info Solutions used IBM watsonx.ai and Granite series models to develop a multi-faceted agentic AI solution that provides actionable insights for all roles involved in the end-to-end management of community groundwater, for the “Clean water challenge” in March.

The 2025 Call for Code Global Challenge Second Runner-up Winner Agents FDRK from Unisys used IBM watsonx Orchestrate to build an agentic AI solution that coordinates faster responses to infrastructure failures and urban disasters, with the goal of saving lives and property, for the “Industry, innovation, and infrastructure challenge.”

“The Call for Code Global Challenge demonstrates how practical innovation can advance equality and human dignity,” said Astrid Van Genderen Stort, Director of External Engagement and Partnerships, UN Human Rights. “By aligning with the Sustainable Development Goals and grounding solutions in essential human rights, these teams are translating ideas into impact across communities worldwide. Their work reminds us that progress and justice go hand in hand— that no one should be left behind—and that technology is part of the solution, when deployed for good.”

About Call for Code
Developers are the visionaries of progress, shaping the way humanity lives, connects, and thrives in an ever-changing world. Where others see obstacles, developers see solutions. Recognizing this potential, David Clark, CEO of David Clark Cause, launched Call for Code in 2018 with IBM as Founding Partner, United Nations Human Rights as Global Impact Partner, and The Linux Foundation as Program Affiliate. Since then, Call for Code has mobilized developers from over 180 countries to address the world’s most pressing challenges—from disaster response to combating climate change. In 2022, Call for Code it was named the preferred innovation platform for the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Alliance, the largest public-private initiative addressing climate change, supported by United Nations Human Rights and the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. This collaboration underscores Call for Code’s unparalleled impact in mobilizing developers worldwide to drive meaningful change on a global scale.

Call for Code Engages Developers to Build AI Solutions that Address Social Issues

Thu, 06 Mar 2025 13:51:00 GMT

In its eighth year, Call for Code presents a series of SDG-focused hackathons throughout the year, kicking off with a competition to build AI agents

BOULDER, CO., March, 5, 2025 – Today, Call for Code Creator David Clark Cause , Founding Partner IBM (NYSE: IBM ), Global Impact Partner United Nations Human Rights , and Program Affiliate the Linux Foundation invite developers and problem solvers to participate in the 2025 Call for Code program to create projects and solutions that use AI to help tackle United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) .

Since its launch in 2018, Call for Code has rallied developers globally to come together and create innovative solutions to help solve the world’s largest problems with technology. In 2025, the Call for Code Global Challenge will again ask how AI can address humanitarian issues to make a real difference for communities around the world.

“Call for Code is a unique global tech initiative, that inspires and empowers developers and problem-solvers from around the world to use their talent to innovate for social good,” said David Clark, Founder and CEO of Call for Code. “I am immensely proud that Call for Code, alongside its founding partner IBM, and with UN Human Rights, has helped ensure that technology serves as a catalyst for sustainability, climate and humanitarian action.”

This year, participants will have the opportunity to take part in five qualifying hackathon events as part of the year-long Call for Code Global Challenge in collaboration with IBM’s TechXchange Client Advocacy team. For each event, teams will build an original proof-of-concept solution based on a different SDG with technologies like watsonx, IBM's portfolio of AI products and IBM Cloud services. Each hackathon will include a different theme linked to one of the 17 SDGs.

The first qualifying hackathon will be held March 20 through March 31, 2025. In honor of UN World Water Day on March 22, it calls on participants to build a proof-of-concept for an AI virtual agent using watsonx.ai that can be put to work to address an issue that falls under the SDG6: Clean Water and Sanitation. In addition, Call for Code will host a hackathon to tackle SDG 13 climate action as part of the 2025 Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit, the world’s largest human rights-based climate forum, hosted by UN Human Rights, the University of Oxford, and co-hosted by leading universities worldwide.

“From the very beginning, UN Human Rights has been honored to support Call for Code, recognizing that technology—when grounded in human rights—can be a powerful force for good,” said Ansar Mahfoudh, head of the Innovation and Analytics Hub at UN Human Rights. “Since helping launch this groundbreaking initiative almost a decade ago, we have supported those projects that champion innovation that serves humanity. We remain committed to ensuring Call for Code grows from strength to strength, by drawing on a community of socially-minded coders who place humans at the centre of tech and innovation solutions.”

“Call for Code is a unique opportunity to get hands-on with AI, build new skills, network with a community of like-minded problem solvers, and create solutions,” said Dinesh Nirmal, IBM Senior Vice President, IBM Software. “This year, there’s no-cost access to industry leading, enterprise-grade IBM software like watsonx.ai for participants. I am excited to see what teams build to make a positive difference.”

Teams, made up of one to five developers, can compete for prizes awarded in each hackathon. The top Call for Code solution from each qualifying hackathon will win $5,000 USD and one conference pass per team member to the IBM TechXchange Conference 2025 in Orlando. This is IBM's biggest technical learning conference of the year (official rules apply, tickets are non-transferable, and travel and lodging are not included). The qualifying teams will also have the chance to advance to compete for the 2025 Call for Code Global Challenge Grand Prizes, including a top cash prize of $50,000 USD. Top teams will also have the opportunity for open-source project support from the Linux Foundation. Grand prize winners will be announced in December.

Interested participants can register here before March 18, 2025 for the first hackathon, which runs from March 20 to 31, 2025. More details about each Call for Code qualifying hackathon will be shared on the Call for Code website as the year progresses.

About Call for Code Global Challenge
Developers have revolutionized the way people live and interact with virtually everyone and everything. Where most people see challenges, developers see possibilities. That's why David Clark, the CEO of David Clark Cause, created Call for Code in 2018, and launched it alongside Founding Partner IBM and Global Impact Partner United Nations Human Rights. In 2022 Call for Code was selected as the preferred innovation platform for the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Alliance, the largest public/private initiative in the world promoting climate justice.

2025 Call For Code: IBM’s AI Challenge Could Change the World

Thu, 06 Mar 2025 13:37:33 GMT

Boulder, Colorado, USA , 6th March 2025 – Call for Code Creator David Clark Cause, Founding Partner IBM (NYSE: IBM), Global Impact Partner United Nations Human Rights, and Program Affiliate the Linux Foundation call on developers and problem solvers to join the 2025 Call for Code program to develop projects and solutions that employ AI to assist in solving United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Launched in 2018, this initiative unites developers from across the world to develop creative solutions with technology. For this year, the emphasis is on employing Artificial Intelligence (AI) to address challenges such as clean water, climate change, and others.

Call for Code is a worldwide tech initiative that invites developers to leverage their talents for the better. It’s endorsed by well-known bigwigs such as IBM and the United Nations Human Rights. The idea is simple: apply technology to make the world a better place.

This year, there are five large events referred to as hackathons where groups of developers will get together to address various issues. Each event targets one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), such as clean water or climate action.

The first event runs from March 20 to March 31. It’s all about developing AI solutions to address clean water problems, which is particularly relevant around UN World Water Day on March 22. Developers have access to world-class AI tools from IBM at no cost. They can develop new skills, connect with others who share their interests, and develop solutions that actually have impact. And, there are awards! The top team at every event takes home $5,000 and gets to visit a major tech conference in Orlando. The top teams even have the chance to vie for an additional $50,000 grand prize later in the year.

Technology can be a force for good when applied in the right way. United Nations Human Rights has been backing Call for Code from the start since it is a strong believer in harnessing technology to improve human lives. This movement proves that with the right attitude and capabilities, we are capable of addressing some of the most challenging issues in the world. If you’re interested, you can sign up for the first hackathon prior to March 18.

It’s for anyone who would like to contribute, whether you’re a student or a working professional. So, if you’re passionate about coding and wish to apply your skills to give back to society, this is an excellent way to get started and make a tangible difference.

In general, Call for Code is all about applying technology to create a better world. It’s an opportunity for developers to collaborate, learn from one another, and develop solutions that can impact communities globally. With the backing of organizations such as IBM and the United Nations, this project has the potential to drive actual change. Whether you are an experienced developer or just beginning, becoming a member of Call for Code can be a great way to leverage your skills for a good cause.

Call for Code 2025 Launches AI Hackathons to Tackle Global Issues

Thu, 06 Mar 2025 13:27:59 GMT

The 2025 Call for Code program kicks off with AI-focused hackathons, empowering developers to create solutions for humanitarian challenges using IBM’s watsonx AI and cloud technologies.

Boulder, CO – The eighth edition of Call for Code came back this year as a global initiative for developers to create AI-enabled solutions for humanitarian and sustainability challenges. The David Clark Cause partnered with IBM, the United Nations Human Rights, and the Linux Foundation to dedicate the 2025 Call for Code Worldwide Challenge to exploring the social and environmental impact of AI.

Since 2018, Call for Code has mobilized millions of developers who have made technological contributions to critical issues on the world stage. This year a program with a number of hackathons has been launched, each of which will address a specific United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG). The software developers and problem solvers are going to compete for creating proof-of-concept AI solutions using IBM’s watsonx AI and cloud technologies.

“Call for Code is a unique global tech initiative that inspires and empowers developers and problem-solvers from around the world to use their talent to innovate for social good,” said David Clark, Founder and CEO of Call for Code. “I am immensely proud that Call for Code, alongside its founding partner IBM, and with UN Human Rights, has helped ensure that technology serves as a catalyst for sustainability, climate and humanitarian action.”

Upcoming Hackathons and Key Challenges

On March 20, 2025, the first hackathon will commence with an emphasis on SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation, in view of UN World Water Day (March 22). The participants will build AI virtual agents with watsonx.ai that will help tackle water access and sanitation issues. Later in the year, another hackathon will take place focused on SDG 13: Climate Action, in alignment with the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit organized by UN Human Rights and the University of Oxford.

“From the very beginning, UN Human Rights has been honored to support Call for Code, recognizing that technology—when grounded in human rights—can be a powerful force for good,” said Ansar Mahfoudh, head of the Innovation and Analytics Hub at UN Human Rights. “Since helping launch this groundbreaking initiative almost a decade ago, we have supported those projects that champion innovation that serves humanity. We remain committed to ensuring Call for Code grows from strength to strength, by drawing on a community of socially-minded coders who place humans at the centre of tech and innovation solutions.”

Each winning hackathon team will win $5,000 USD and passes to IBM TechXchange Conference 2025 in Orlando. Meanwhile, the top-performing teams will compete for the Call for Code Global Challenge Grand Prize of $50,000 USD and possibly a open-source project support from the Linux Foundation.

“Call for Code is a unique opportunity to get hands-on with AI, build new skills, network with a community of like-minded problem solvers, and create solutions,” said Dinesh Nirmal, IBM Senior Vice President, IBM Software. “This year, there’s no-cost access to industry leading, enterprise-grade IBM software like watsonx.ai for participants. I am excited to see what teams build to make a positive difference.”

The closing date for registration for the first hackathon is set for March 18, 2025. Details of the subsequent hackathons will be announced via the Call for Code website through the year.

Call for Code: AI solutions promote human rights

Thu, 19 Dec 2024 21:38:20 GMT

“Unprecedented advances in digital technology, including generative artificial intelligence, offer us previously unimaginable opportunities to move forward on the enjoyment of human rights and contribute to rescuing the 2030 Agenda,” UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk said in his vision statement, “Human Rights: A Path for Solutions.”

As AI continues to evolve and impact all areas of society and our daily lives, UN Human Rights is collaborating with countries, companies, and civil society to embed a rights-based approach to technological innovation.

This means ensuring its use considers human rights implications and impact, and that effective guardrails to prevent rights abuses are in place, in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights .

It also means supporting initiatives that pilot and use AI to solve real world challenges that put humans at the center. For instance, AI-powered technology projects that address inequality in schools, improve learning tools for underserved students, and recycle clothing waste to help local communities boost their income.

These are actual examples of AI for Good work emerging from a global project backed by UN Human Rights.

Launched in 2018, Call for Code is an initiative driven by the David Clark Cause, founding partner IBM, affiliate partner Linux Foundation, and UN Human Rights to mobilize tech developers from around the world to find human rights-based solutions to today’s most pressing challenges. Now entering its 8th year, Call for Code has emerged as the largest Tech for Good initiative of its kind.

“When new technologies such as AI are grounded in human rights, they can be a force for good to help drive sustainable development and promote human-centred tech, benefitting everyone,” said Anwar Mahfoudh, who heads the Innovation and Analytics Hub at UN Human Rights.

The 2024 winners of the Call for Code challenge included teams that used AI technologies and open-source AI models for different projects that promote equality, dignity, and fairness.

GoBang, a group of students from Georgia Institute of Technology and University of Michigan, USA, developed an AI dashboard for course planning in underfunded schools.

KindThreads created an AI-powered platform to categorize used clothes and provide data-driven recommendations on how they can be recycled.

T-Chai developed an AI-powered homework tutor that provides learning resources for underserved families.

“This year's impressive winners used AI-powered technologies to address community challenges that tackle big SDG and human rights-related problems. Their remarkable solutions not only inspire hope but also reaffirm our shared commitment to leaving no one behind in the fight for justice and equality,” added Mahfoudh.

UN Human Rights provides expertise and guidance on adopting a human rights-based approach to the development and deployment of technologies, including AI.

In June 2024, UN Human Rights established its Innovation and Analytics Hub to help address pressing human rights challenges and advance the 2030 Agenda by leveraging digital transformation, data and analytics, and innovation to create sustainable solutions that enhance the promotion and protection of human rights.

2024 Call for Code Global Challenge Winners Improve Equitable Access to Essential Needs with Solutions Using IBM watsonx

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 21:21:00 GMT

Winning teams from Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Michigan, Persistent, and independent consultants developed AI-powered solutions to help improve equitable access to essential resources and opportunities

BOULDER, CO., Dec. 10, 2024 – Today, in alignment with United Nations Human Rights Day, Call for Code, the largest tech-for-good initiative of its kind driven by creator David Clark Cause, Founding Partner IBM (NYSE: IBM), Charitable Partner United Nations Human Rights, and Program Affiliate the Linux Foundation announced the winners of the annual Call for Code Global Challenge. Developers and problem solvers across the globe were invited to create AI-powered technology projects that address specific challenges of equitable access to essential needs. This year’s top prizes went to teams GoBang, Kind Threads and T-Chai, which used IBM watsonx AI technologies and AI models like IBM Granite, to help improve access to education, learning resources, and essential needs like clothing and income.

"There is no better moment than UN Human Rights Day to announce this year’s Call for Code Global Challenge winners," said David Clark, founder and CEO of Call for Code. "These AI-powered technologies tackle the pressing challenge of equitable access to essential needs—a cornerstone of human rights rooted in the principles of equality, dignity, and fairness. Equitable access drives social justice by breaking down systemic barriers and ensuring marginalized communities are not left behind.”

2024 Call for Code Global Challenge Winning Teams

The Grand Prize-winning team will receive $50,000 USD, as well as solution implementation support from the Call for Code ecosystem, as applicable. The runners-up will receive $25,000 USD and $10,000 USD. All three teams have the opportunity to receive assistance from the Linux Foundation to open source their application.

The 2024 Call for Code Global Challenge Grand Prize Winner is GoBang , a group of students from Georgia Institute of Technology and University of Michigan addressing educational inequality, especially for under-resourced schools in their home country of Taiwan. They used IBM watsonx.ai to develop an application to provide educators with a customizable AI dashboard for course planning, including lesson plans, worksheets and recommendations. As the top scoring university team, they also are the recipients of the 2024 University Grant, receiving $30,000 USD for their schools and eligibility for an opportunity to explore job opportunities at IBM, alongside the option to be matched with an IBM mentor.

The 2024 Call for Code Global Challenge First Runner-up Winner is KindThreads . The team from Persistent created an IBM watsonx.ai-powered platform that helps local communities turn clothing waste into essential resources and income opportunities. The app uses watsonx.ai Prompt Lab to identify and categorize the clothing item, assess its wearability, and provide data-driven recommendations on how it can be reused, recycled, or donated based on its condition.

The 2024 Call for Code Global Challenge Second Runner-up Winner is T-Chai . The team developed an AI-powered homework tutor based on IBM watsonx.ai and the IBM Granite large language model that adapts the level and complexity of its responses to match the student’s age and profile. The application can also assist parents in understanding their child's curriculum, finding age-appropriate educational resources, creating practice tests, and providing effective memorization techniques on computers and smartphones, to provide underserved families access to right-fit learning resources.

“Call for Code continues to inspire some of the brightest and most creative problem solvers worldwide to develop solutions that tackle global social and humanitarian issues, such as equitable access to resources,” said Kate Woolley, general manager, IBM Ecosystem. “I would like to congratulate today’s winners and thank all the 2024 Call for Code teams and IBM partners that participated in this year’s challenge, demonstrating how Generative AI technologies such as IBM watsonx and IBM Granite models can be utilized to drive change around the world.”

"The challenge is not just an opportunity to demonstrate how technology can truly make a difference, but a call to action for those passionate about using their skills to solve real-world problems. It is a reminder that innovation can drive meaningful change, and through collaboration, we can make an impact that matters," said Anwar Mahfoudh, Chief, Innovation and Analytics Hub, UN Human Rights. "This year's impressive winners used AI-powered technologies to address community challenges that tackle big SDG and human rights related problems. Their remarkable solutions not only inspire hope but also reaffirm our shared commitment to leaving no one behind in the fight for justice and equality."

2024 Ecosystem Engagement Award

Since 2019, the Call for Code Ecosystem Engagement Awards have recognized organizations that have answered the call and exhibited a deep commitment to Call for Code. For 2024, Call for Code is honoring Persistent with this award for their collaboration in this year’s program. Persistent has partnered with and sponsored Call for Code for several years, and once again they are a Gold Sponsor of Call for Code in 2024. In September, Persistent held their third annual in-person Global Challenge Kickoff event in Pune, India. 11 teams from Persistent were inspired to submit projects to this year’s Global Challenge and one team, KindThreads , was a finalist in this year’s competition. The challenge provides a great opportunity for skills development and team building for Persistent employees, and it aligns with Persistent’s culture of innovation and commitment to societal contribution. Persistent’s support continues to be invaluable to the success of Call for Code.

Since its launch in 2018, Call for Code has become an annual rally call for developers around the world to come together and think creatively about how to help solve the world’s largest problems with technology. Call for Code helps participants gain skills in AI and hybrid cloud technology by offering access to build with technology like IBM watsonx, Red Hat OpenShift and IBM Cloud. IBM Ecosystem partners provide subject matter expertise that can help teams advance their solutions, as well as encourage employee participation.

About Call for Code

Developers are the visionaries of progress, shaping the way humanity lives, connects, and thrives in an ever-changing world. Where others see obstacles, developers see solutions. Recognizing this potential, David Clark, CEO of David Clark Cause, launched Call for Code in 2018 with IBM as Founding Partner, United Nations Human Rights as Charitable Partner, and The Linux Foundation as Program Affiliate. Since then, Call for Code has mobilized developers from over 180 countries to address the world’s most pressing challenges—from disaster response to combating climate change. In 2022, Call for Code it was named the preferred innovation platform for the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Alliance, the largest public-private initiative addressing climate change, supported by United Nations Human Rights and the University of Oxford. This collaboration underscores Call for Code’s unparalleled impact in mobilizing developers worldwide to drive meaningful change on a global scale.

PR Contact

Rebekah Alperin

David Clark Cause

reb@gostoryboard.com

2024 IBM Call for Code Global Challenge for AI Tech Solutions ($285,000 USD CASH PRIZE)

Thu, 17 Oct 2024 13:23:16 GMT

pplications are now open for the 2024 IBM Call for Code Global Challenge. Be a part of a new era in responsible AI. Use your skills to improve equitable access to essential resources and opportunities for all people. You could win prizes and help show the world that AI can be trusted and used responsibly. Started in 2018, Call for Code is the largest tech-for-good initiative of its kind. We invite developers and problem-solvers from universities, startups, and enterprises around the world to build and contribute to innovative technology solutions that address social and humanitarian issues, while ensuring top solutions are deployed to make a real difference. Help show the world that AI can be trusted and used responsibly.

How can generative AI technology improve equitable access to essential resources and opportunities for all people?

Requirements

IBM is calling all university students, developers, and problem solvers to join Call for Code.

From the annual Global Challenge to additional events throughout the year, as well as ongoing open source projects, there are many ways to get involved. Participate in the ways that are right for you and build skills while making meaningful change.

There are many ways you can build a great team, but the most successful teams often bring together diverse skill sets to design unique and impactful solutions. Consider problem-solvers with varied experience when assembling your team.

Prizes

Teams of 1-5 people can compete for the following prizes:

Grand prize winners

Grand prize

$50,000 USD

Option for solution implementation support from the Call for Code ecosystem

Opportunity for open source support from The Linux Foundation

First runner-up

$25,000 USD

Opportunity for open source support from The Linux Foundation

Second runner-up

$10,000 USD

Opportunity for open source support from The Linux Foundation

University grant

$30,000 USD

total to the top scoring university team’s school(s)

Any university students in the top 3 winning teams are also eligible for:

Exploration of IBM job opportunities
Option to be matched with an IBM mentor

In addition to prizes, participants can grow their AI, cloud, and other emerging tech skills through access to expert technical mentors, training resources, and events.

Judging criteria

Each submission will be scored based on the following criteria with a minimum score of 0 and maximum score of 20 points, with the final score being the average of the judges’ scores.

Completeness and transferability (5 points)
Effectiveness and efficiency (5 points)
Design and usability (5 points)
Creativity and innovation (5 points)

For More Information:

Visit the Official Webpage of the IBM Call for Code Global Challenge

2024 Call for Code Empowers Developers to Help Improve Equitable Access to Essential Needs by Creating Solutions with IBM watsonx

Thu, 29 Feb 2024 12:42:00 GMT

Now in its seventh year, Call for Code challenges developers and university students worldwide to build AI-powered solutions to help historically underserved and vulnerable people access essential needs

BOULDER, CO., Feb. 29, 2024 - Today, Call for Code Creator, David Clark Cause , Founding Partner IBM (NYSE: IBM ), Charitable Partner United Nations Human Rights , and Program Affiliate the Linux Foundation launched the 2024 Call for Code Global Challenge to empower developers to use generative AI technology to create solutions that aim to improve equitable access to resources and opportunities for historically underserved and vulnerable people. This year, individual participants will have access to a trial version of IBM watsonx , IBM’s AI and data platform, which will include IBM watsonx.ai , IBM watsonx.governance and IBM watsonx Assistant . In addition, participants will have access to other IBM technology on IBM Cloud .

“Necessities like clean water, safe affordable housing, and opportunities in education and fair government representation are not equally available to all people. Climate change exacerbates these challenges in underserved communities’ whose resources are often strained and inadequate,” said David Clark, Founder and CEO of Call for Code. “With generative AI technology like watsonx, the developer community has a powerful tool to help tackle these issues, in order to help reduce inequality and improve people’s lives around the world.”

Participating developers will access a trial version of IBM watsonx, which is designed with principles of transparency, responsibility and governance, and IBM’s hybrid cloud platform to develop solutions to help address equitable access issues in areas such as effective climate change policies and protections; affordable and clean energy; clean water and awareness of water quality; leadership and income opportunities; safe and affordable housing; representation; technology; and quality education.

“What makes Call for Code such a dynamic developer challenge is its ability to rally and inspire students, developers, and problem-solvers from universities and companies around the world to use AI and other technology to help address some of society’s most pressing issues,” said Savio Rodrigues, Vice President, Ecosystem Engineering & Developer Advocacy, IBM. “This year, participants can build with IBM watsonx to help power their solutions, and will also have access to IBM mentors and free courses in generative AI, to help ensure they are able to create the most impactful submissions.”

The 2024 challenge will feature one single round, which opens on March 8 with submissions due by October 17. A Grand Prize Winner will be awarded $50,000 USD and solution implementation support from the Call for Code ecosystem. The 1st runner-up will win $25,000 USD and the 2nd runner-up will receive $10,000 USD. The top-scoring team comprised entirely of university students will also earn a $30,000 USD grant to be awarded to their school or shared by up to 5 schools represented by the team members.

Universities are helping promote Call for Code in the classroom and are working to support and co-host Call for Code events throughout the year in support of the Global Challenge, including B.N.M. Institute of Technology, Dallas College, Florida Atlantic University, Georgia Institute of Technology, JSS Academy of Technical Education, Northwestern University, Pace University, University of Central Florida, University of North Texas, REVA University, and The University of Sydney.

Call for Code also encourages participants to refer to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals as a resource to help inspire problem-solving.

The top three winning teams are eligible to receive open-source support from the Linux Foundation.

About Call for Code Global Challenge  Developers have revolutionized the way people live and interact with virtually everyone and everything. Where most people see challenges, developers see possibilities. That's why David Clark, the CEO of David Clark Cause, created Call for Code in 2018, and launched it alongside Founding Partner IBM and Charitable Partner United Nations Human Rights. In 2022 Call for Code was selected as the preferred innovation platform for the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Alliance, the largest public/private initiative in the world promoting climate justice.

Agricultural Solutions Sweep the 2023 Call for Code Competition

Mon, 18 Dec 2023 12:32:33 GMT

BOULDER, Colo., December 18, 2023 /3BL/ - New AI-powered technologies related to agriculture issues ranging from contaminated soil and crop management to food waste were selected as winners of the sixth annual Call for Code contest.

The Grand Prize-winning teams will each receive $50,000 USD, as well as solution implementation support from the Call for Code ecosystem, including founding partner IBM and Arrow Electronics. The developer and university winners will receive assistance from the Linux Foundation to open source their application.

The 2023 winners include:

The Global Challenge Developer Winner is AGNO, a team from Hexaware Technologies who developed the FARMISTAR platform. The team aims to help small farmers stay up to date with weather forecasts and AI-driven crop management strategies.
The 2023 Call for Code Global Challenge University Winner is Phyto , a group of students from University of Sydney. They built an AI-powered geospatial and weather analytics tool designed to help farmers rehabilitate contaminated soil naturally.
The 2023 Call for Code Global Challenge Independent Software Vendor/Startup Winner is Synergy Squad, a team from Persistent who built Offshelf , a solution designed to help households reduce food waste. Through the platform, people will receive notifications before a product expires to notify them that a food item needs to be used by a specific date.

Created by David Clark Cause, Call for Code has become an annual rally call for developers around the world to come together and think creatively about how to help solve the world’s largest problems with technology. Call for Code helps participants gain skills in AI and hybrid cloud technology by offering access to build with technology from supporters including IBM, Red Hat, and Arrow, as well as U.N. Human Rights.

About Arrow Electronics:

Arrow Electronics guides innovation forward for over 220,000 leading technology manufacturers and service providers. With 2022 sales of $37.1 billion, Arrow develops technology solutions that help improve business and daily life. Learn more at arrow.com .

About Call for Code

Developers have revolutionized the way people live and interact with virtually everyone and everything. Where most people see challenges, developers see possibilities. That's why David Clark, the CEO of David Clark Cause, created Call for Code in 2018, and launched it alongside Founding Partner IBM and Charitable Partner United Nations Human Rights. In 2022 Call for Code was selected as the preferred innovation platform for the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Alliance, the largest public/private initiative in the world promoting climate justice.

2023 Call for Code Global Challenge Winners Tackle Agriculture, Farming and Food Waste Issues with IBM Technology

Thu, 07 Dec 2023 15:26:00 GMT

BOULDER, CO., Dec. 6, 2023 – Today, Call for Code Creator, David Clark Cause, Founding Partner IBM (NYSE: IBM ), Charitable Partner United Nations Human Rights , and Program Affiliate the Linux Foundation announced the winners of the sixth annual Call for Code Global Challenge, which invited innovators across the globe to develop AI-powered technology projects that address sustainability to help fight climate change. This year’s top prizes went to team AGNO, Phyto and team Synergy Squad, all of which used technologies like IBM watsonx and IBM Environmental Intelligence Suite , to address agricultural issues ranging from contaminated soil and crop management to food waste.

“This year we introduced a new, always-on format for Call for Code that gives developers at every stage of their career – from students to seasoned professionals – more opportunities to participate, gain skills, and build sustainable solutions,” said David Clark, founder and CEO of Call for Code. "Congratulations to the 2023 Call for Code Global Challenge winning teams, who continue to play a crucial role in bringing solutions to market that tackle today’s most pressing sustainability issues.”

2023 Call for Code Global Challenge Winning Teams

This year, to help developers make an even greater impact, Call for Code transitioned from a single, annual global challenge to quarterly “Challenge Rounds” throughout the year. Winners from each round moved on to the Grand Prize round, where one winning team was determined from each of Call for Code’s Developer, University, and Independent Software Vendor/Startup categories. The Grand Prize winning teams listed below will each receive $50,000 USD, as well as solution implementation support from the Call for Code ecosystem, as applicable. The developer and university winners will receive assistance from the Linux Foundation to open source their application.

The 2023 Call for Code Global Challenge Developer Winner is AGNO, a team from Hexaware Technologies who developed the FARMISTAR platform built with watsonx.ai and IBM watsonx Assistant . The team aims to help small farmers stay up to date with weather forecasts and AI-driven crop management strategies.

The 2023 Call for Code Global Challenge University Winner is Phyto , a group of students from The University of Sydney who used IBM Watson Studio and the IBM Environmental Intelligence Suite to build an AI-powered geospatial and weather analytics tool designed to help farmers rehabilitate contaminated soil naturally.

The 2023 Call for Code Global Challenge Independent Software Vendor/Startup Winner is Synergy Squad, a team from Persistent who built Offshelf , an IBM Watson Speech to Text powered solution designed to help households reduce food waste. Through the platform, people will receive notifications before a product expires to notify them that a food item needs to be used by a specific date.

“Over the past six years, Call for Code has inspired developers and problem solvers worldwide to build solutions that tackle issues core to our planet such as sustainable farming practices, water quality, and clean energy,” said Kate Woolley, general manager, IBM Ecosystem. “I would like to congratulate today’s winners, and all the 2023 Call for Code participants, who have shown how new technologies such as IBM watsonx can be harnessed to create projects that have the potential to drive lasting change for our planet.”

Since its launch in 2018, Call for Code has become an annual rally call for developers around the world to come together and think creatively about how to help solve the world’s largest problems with technology. Call for Code helps participants gain skills in AI and hybrid cloud technology by offering access to build with technology like IBM watsonx , Red Hat OpenShift and IBM Cloud . IBM Ecosystem partners provide subject matter expertise that can help teams advance their solutions, as well as encourage employee participation.

About Call for CodeDevelopers have revolutionized the way people live and interact with virtually everyone and everything. Where most people see challenges, developers see possibilities. That's why David Clark, the CEO of David Clark Cause, created Call for Code in 2018, and launched it alongside Founding Partner IBM and Charitable Partner United Nations Human Rights. In 2022 Call for Code was selected as the preferred innovation platform for the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Alliance, the largest public/private initiative in the world promoting climate justice.

Call for Code seeks AI-driven solutions to sustainability

Thu, 16 Feb 2023 12:23:07 GMT

The programme seeks, with partners IBM, the UN and the Linux Foundation, to encourage innovative solutions to some of the day's major environmental issues

The innovative Call for Code programme has launched its 2023 iteration, according to creator David Clark, founding partner IBM, charitable partner the United Nations, and programme affiliate the Linux Foundation.

This year marks the sixth that Call for Code has been spurring developers and students around the world with its stated goal of implementing AI-powered solutions to find sustainable solutions to issues surrounding climate change.

On the agenda for this year will be addressing issues related to resource management, the reduction of pollution, and the protection of biodiversity.

There is one differentiator between this year and last: instead of there being one major prize, there will be multiple “Challenge Rounds”, whereby different groups compete for a prize pool of up to $1.4m, thus making the field of talent more varied and spread out.

Speaking on the sustainability contest, Founder and CEO Clark noted: Since its launch in 2018, Call for Code has become a global call to actin for developers around the world to come together to think creatively abut how they can use their skills to help solve some of the world’s most pressing problems. We believe that the new Call for Code Global Challenge format will empower even more developers to make an impact using open-source AI technology.”

Among the open resources available to participants are software programmes such as Red Hat OpenShift, IBM Cloud and the IBM Watson Assistant, which is part of the computer company’s AI portfolio.

Using these, participants must choose from a number of topics to guide their research. Among these are: improving the measurement of carbon emissions, addressing issues of water scarcity, and increasing supply chain transparency.

For IBM, involvement in the programme has proved to be a boon over the years. Kate Woolley, general manager of IBM Ecosystem, noted that it has been “inspiring to see the support for Call for Code from our IBM Ecosystem business partners over the year, demonstrating the impact an ecosystem can have on addressing real-world issues – from improving connectivity in the wake of natural disasters, to efficiently monitoring safe water conditions and reducing food waste.”

IBM, David Clark Cause Launch Annual Call For Code Global Challenge

Tue, 14 Feb 2023 17:00:00 GMT

The 2023 Call for Code Global Challenge, an annual initiative that encourages developers to create projects that combat climate change with AI-powered technology, officially kicked off this week.

The competition was announced Monday morning by IBM, along with Call for Code creator David Clark Cause , charitable partner United Nations Human Rights, and the Linux Foundation.

This year, Call for Code challenges developers, students, and startups to build and contribute to solutions that help accelerate sustainability, with a focus on improving resource management, reducing pollution and protecting biodiversity."Since its launch in 2018, Call for Code has become a global call to action for developers around the world to come together to think creatively about how they can use their skills to help solve some of the world’s most pressing problems," David Clark, Founder and CEO of Call for Code, said in a news release.

The competition is changing its format for 2023. Instead of a single global challenge there will be multiple “Challenge Rounds” throughout the year. Teams in each round will compete for cash prizes from a total prize pool of up to $1.4 million.

Teams can win multiple rounds, with prizes ranging from $3,000 to $10,000. One winner from each of the competition's three entry categories – developers, university students and startups – will be eligible for a grand prize of $50,000. The prize also includes open source support from the Linux Foundation.

The first round runs from March 1 through April 7.

Solutions should address at least one sustainability issue such as improving the ability to measure, analyze, or take decisive action on carbon emissions; addressing issues of water scarcity and quality; improving supply chain transparency and traceability.
There is also a new program this year called Call For Code Startups .

In its sixth year, Call for Code has brought together more than a half-million developers, students and problem-solvers from 180 nations. IBM works with winning teams to incubate and deploy their solutions in the real world.

Last year's winner, GardenMate , is an innovative app that connects gardeners with excess produce and people in need. The project aims to help cut down on the nearly 1 billion tons of wasted food the United Nations says goes in the trash each year.2021's winner was a water-quality monitoring device called Saaf Water . Contaminated drinking water is estimated to contribute to at least 480,000 deaths a year worldwide and at least 2 billion people use a contaminated water source, according to the World Health Organization.

2023 Call for Code Encourages Developers to Build Sustainability Solutions Using IBM AI & Hybrid Cloud

Mon, 13 Feb 2023 13:29:00 GMT

Entering its sixth year, Call for Code introduces multiple challenges for global community of developers and students, and launches new initiative for startups and ISVs

BOULDER, CO., Feb. 13, 2023 -- Today, Call for Code Creator, David Clark Cause , Founding Partner IBM (NYSE: IBM ), Charitable Partner United Nations Human Rights , and Program Affiliate the Linux Foundation launched the 2023 Call for Code program to encourage the development of AI-powered technology projects that address sustainability issues to help fight climate change. This year, Call for Code will challenge global developers, students, and startups to build and contribute to solutions that help accelerate sustainability by improving resource management, reducing pollution and protecting biodiversity.

To help engage more developers, this year’s Call for Code Global Challenge will transition from a single, annual global challenge to multiple “Challenge Rounds” throughout 2023. In each Challenge Round, teams will compete for cash prizes out of a total prize pool of up to $1.4M USD. Interested teams can register for this year's Global Challenge here . The first round of the Challenge opens March 1 and will run through April 7. Winning teams can receive prizes in multiple Challenge Rounds during the year, ranging from $3,000 to $10,000 USD. One winning team from each category – Developers, University students and Startups – will each be eligible to win a grand prize of $50,000 USD at the end of the year, including open source support from the Linux Foundation, which has open sourced more than a dozen previous Call for Code projects.

"Since its launch in 2018, Call for Code has become a global call to action for developers around the world to come together to think creatively about how they can use their skills to help solve some of the world’s most pressing problems. We believe that the new Call for Code Global Challenge format will empower even more developers to make an impact using open-source AI technology,” said David Clark, Founder and CEO of Call for Code.

Call for Code helps participants gain skills in AI and Cloud technology by using open-source-powered software such as Red Hat OpenShift , IBM Cloud , and IBM’s embeddable AI portfolio , including IBM Watson Assistant . Solutions should address at least one sustainability issue, such as:

Improve the ability to measure, analyze, or take decisive action on carbon emissions
Address issues of water scarcity and quality
Improve supply chain transparency and traceability to bring fast and accurate visibility to sustainability issues where they arise

A full list of topics within the sustainability theme can be found here .

“Call for Code offers developers a hands-on opportunity to build new skills and put their problem-solving superpowers to work using IBM’s open hybrid cloud and AI technology,” said Kate Woolley, general manager, IBM Ecosystem. “It’s also been inspiring to see the support for Call for Code from our IBM Ecosystem business partners over the years, demonstrating the impact an ecosystem can have on addressing real-world issues - from improving connectivity in the wake of natural disasters, to efficiently monitoring safe water conditions and reducing food waste. I can't wait to see what solutions the community produces throughout this year to help accelerate sustainability."

Call for Code for Startups is a new program that connects startups, independent software vendors (ISVs), and venture capitalists (VCs) with select enterprises around new business opportunities. Participating startups and ISVs will create solutions using IBM AI technology that help address a specific sustainability need chosen by each enterprise. Interested participants learn how to get involved here .

About Call for Code Global Challenge
Developers have revolutionized the way people live and interact with virtually everyone and everything. Where most people see challenges, developers see possibilities. That's why David Clark, the CEO of David Clark Cause, created Call for Code in 2018, and launched it alongside Founding Partner IBM and Charitable Partner United Nations Human Rights. In 2022 Call for Code was selected as the preferred innovation platform for the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Alliance, the largest public/private initiative in the world promoting climate justice.

2023 Call for Code Global Challenge to address sustainability issues using AI-powered technologies

Mon, 13 Feb 2023 00:08:11 GMT

The 2023 Call for Code program has been launched by Call for Code Creator, David Clark Cause , IBM, the United Nations Human Rights , and the Linux Foundation. This year, the program aims to challenge global developers, students, and startups to develop AI-powered technology projects that will address sustainability issues such as reducing pollution, improving resource management, and protecting biodiversity.

The Call for Code Global Challenge was created in 2018 by David Clark, the CEO of David Clark Cause, alongside IBM and the United Nations Human Rights. In 2022, the challenge was selected as the preferred innovation platform for the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Alliance , the largest global public/private initiative promoting climate justice.

The 2023 Call for Code Global Challenge will differ from the previous year's format. This year, the challenge will transition from a single, annual global challenge to multiple "rounds" throughout the year, each with its own prizes and funding of up to $1.4 million.

Solutions should address at least one sustainability issue, such as:

Improve the ability to measure, analyze, or take decisive action on carbon emissions
Address issues of water scarcity and quality
Improve supply chain transparency and traceability to bring fast and accurate visibility to sustainability issues where they arise

A full list of topics within the sustainability theme can be found on the Call for Code Developer Challenge website.

The first round of the challenge will open on March 1 and run through April 7; interested teams can register here . The winners of each round will be eligible to win a grand prize at the end of the year, which will include open source support from the Linux Foundation.

The Call for Code program helps participants gain skills in technology such as AI and Cloud by using open-source-powered software such as Red Hat OpenShift, IBM Cloud, and IBM’s embeddable AI portfolio, including IBM Watson Assistant.

The Call for Code for Startups program is a new initiative that aims to connect startups, independent software vendors (ISVs), and venture capitalists (VCs) with select enterprises around new business opportunities. Participating startups and ISVs will create solutions using IBM AI technology that address a specific sustainability need chosen by each enterprise.

The 2023 Call for Code program is an opportunity for developers, students, and startups to use their skills to help solve some of the world's most pressing problems. The new format of the challenge, which includes multiple rounds and prizes, will empower even more developers to make an impact using open-source AI technology.

The Call for Code for Startups program is also a great opportunity for startups and ISVs to connect with enterprises and create solutions that address specific sustainability needs.

Augustana students take home grand prize at Call for Code Global Challenge

Wed, 07 Dec 2022 15:54:00 GMT

A team of four Augustana University students has been named the grand prize winner in a global coding competition. Juniors Abemelech Mesfin Belachew and Manusmriti Budhathoki and sophomores Deepak Krishnaa Govindarajan and Prana Mohanty will leave the competition in New York City with a $200,000 prize to advance their app, GardenMate, along with solution implementation support from IBM and the Call for Code ecosystem.

GardenMate targets the problem of food waste with a marketplace for excess produce and serves as an educational platform for sustainable garden practices. The students were notified in mid-November that their team, GardenMate, was a top five finalist among thousands of entries across the globe.

“Winning (is) a game-changer for the app,” Belachew said. “The next step is incorporating machine learning and AI (artificial intelligence). Then, we can get more people working on the project. If this project goes worldwide, or even locally, it’s actually doing something good, so I’m really excited about that.”

The members of the group are pursuing majors in a variety of fields: business administration, computer science and software engineering, data science, economics, finance and mathematics. All four are also international students. Govindarajan and Mohanty are from India, Belachew is from Ethiopia, and Budhathoki is from Nepal.

The students found support from Augustana Call for Code faculty representative Dr. Matthew Willard, who helped them land on the idea for GardenMate.

“If we can all come together as a society, we can definitely solve this generation’s issues, like global warming,” Govindarajan said. “I feel like Call for Code is making that happen. All the participants — not just the finalists — did something to help sustainability, and that’s what matters.”

This is the fifth Call for Code Global Challenge and second consecutive year that an Augustana team has made it to a final round — seniors Onajite Taire and Gedion Alemayehu were a part of a team that was named a global finalist for the 2021 Call for Code University Challenge .

“Solving such big problems seems attainable, but we just need to focus on what our team can do about it and do our best,” Mohanty said. “And, when everybody does their best, the only outcome that I can see is success. But let’s say that we did not succeed — that does not mean we stopped. We are still motivated, so we just keep going until we succeed.”

IBM and David Clark Cause Aim to Reduce Food Waste; Name AI-Powered Gardening App Winner of 5th Annual Call for Code

Tue, 06 Dec 2022 15:48:00 GMT

Today, Call for Code founding partner IBM (NYSE: IBM), creator, David Clark Cause, charitable partner United Nations Human Rights, and program affiliate, the Linux Foundation announced the winner of the fifth annual Call for Code Global Challenge, which invited innovators across the globe to help accelerate sustainability and combat climate change with open source-powered technology. The top prize this year went to GardenMate for creating an app that uses IBM Watson® to connect gardeners with excess produce to people in need.

IBM's commitment to Call for Code is an extension of the company's mission to better equip enterprises with the skills to develop impactful sustainability solutions. By providing access to leading hybrid cloud and AI technology, developers can leverage open source-powered software such as Red Hat OpenShift , IBM Cloud , and IBM's AI portfolio including IBM Watson Assistant . Since launch, the challenge has garnered participation from a community of 500,000 developers and problem solvers participating across 180 nations.

"Since the inaugural competition in 2018, IBM and Call for Code have empowered developers to take on the challenge of tackling the world's biggest problems, such as fighting pollution and food insecurity," said Kate Woolley, general manager, IBM Ecosystem. "This year's Call for Code demonstrates the impact developers can have working with our Ecosystem partners to help affect change and create a better future through the use of technologies such as Hybrid Cloud and AI."Winning 2022 Call for Code Global Challenge Solutions

GardenMate will receive $200,000 USD, as well as assistance from the Linux Foundation to open source their application and support to deploy their solution from IBM Ecosystem partners. Four additional sustainability solutions were also honored:

pπ, an AI-powered camera that monitors drainage and sewage canals, was awarded second place and $25,000.
Nearbuy, a shopping assistant helping point consumers to pre-loved items found locally, was awarded third place and $25,000.
ESSPERA, a machine learning-powered app that can help farmers choose the best seeds for the upcoming growing season, was awarded fourth place and $10,000.
SwachBIN, a machine learning algorithm that helps waste bins classify materials into trash or recycling, was awarded fifth place and $10,000.

Chelsea Clinton, vice chair, The Clinton Foundation , named TransXEnergy the winner of the Call for Code University Edition, a collaboration between IBM and the Clinton Global Initiative University . A team of student developers from Monash University Malaysia developed TransXEnergy, an auction and blockchain-based peer-to-peer energy trading platform, that pulls available energy data from sources like electric vehicles and smart homes and can connect buyers and sellers through a mobile application. As the Call for Code University winner, TransXEnergy will receive a $15,000 prize.

"I want to congratulate GardenMate for their remarkable innovation, and all the other problem solvers around the world who contributed their time and talent to help make Call for Code such a remarkable success," said David Clark, Founder and CEO of Call for Code. "I also want to thank our Founding Partner IBM for their longstanding passion and commitment, along with our global partner United Nations Human Rights, The Linux Foundation, Clinton Global Initiative University, and all of our ecosystem partners who came together to empower developers to create sustainable solutions to help the most vulnerable among us, by creating software that helps to mitigate and adapt to the escalating effects of climate change."The winning solutions demonstrate IBM's Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) strategy that marries collaboration between clients, partners, and governments with the application of technology, such as Hybrid Cloud and AI, to help build a safer and more equitable future.

IBM Ecosystem Partners and Open-Source Community Advance Call for Code Solutions

The IBM Ecosystem played a pivotal role in this year's challenge, providing subject matter experts to help teams advance their solutions, as well as encouraging employee participation. Partners such as Arrow Electronics , EY , Intuit , Persistent Systems, Ingram Micro and New Relic also supported new projects with developer resources, and technical expertise. "The annual Call for Code event is close to my heart. The event is a great way to empower and inspire our developers to create solutions that can make a difference to the world," said Dr. Anand Deshpande, founder, chairman, and managing director, Persistent. "Call for Code is a part of our ESG strategy, and we encourage our employees to participate in thinking out-of-the-box and sharpening their problem-solving skills. By partnering with IBM, we work on solving the world's most pressing business and societal issues for clients."

Developers can now also contribute to two new open source projects governed by the Linux Foundation, including 2020 Call for Code Global Challenge winner Agrolly 's OpenTempus , its annual weather forecast for temperature and rainfall; and winner of the 2021 Call for Code IBM Challenge, OpenHarvest 's technology to help farmers manage crops through a machine learning-powered recommendation engine.

About IBM
IBM is a leading provider of global hybrid cloud and AI, and consulting expertise. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. More than 4,000 government and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM's hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM's breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and consulting deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM's legendary commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service. Visit www.ibm.com for more information.

About Call for Code
Developers have revolutionized the way people live and interact with virtually everyone and everything. Where most people see challenges, developers see possibilities. That's why David Clark, the CEO of David Clark Cause, created Call for Code in 2018, and launched it alongside Founding Partner IBM and global partner United Nations Human Rights.This $30 million global initiative is a rallying cry to developers to use their mastery of the latest technologies to drive positive and long-lasting change across the world through code. The Call for Code community includes United Nations Human Rights , Linux Foundation , Slack , Clinton Global Initiative University , Arrow Electronics , EY , Intuit , Persistent Systems , Ingram Micro , New Relic , BeMyApp , Clemson University , EMARATSEC, Emirates Digital Association for Women, Kasten by Veeam , Manush Labs , Morgan Stanley , NYU Abu Dhabi , Optics Boss, Samsung Electronics , Sustainable Practices , Teach For All , and Women in AI MENA.

CONTACT:
Chris Blake
blakechr@us.ibm.com
(415)613-1120

Fifth Annual Call for Code Challenges Devs to Use their Powers for Good

Wed, 18 May 2022 14:44:00 GMT

Originally posted on ADTMag.com

Organizers of the fifth annual Call for Code Global Challenge have launched their annual invitation to software developers from around the world to create open-source solutions that accelerate sustainability and combat climate change.Given the growing animus toward so-called Big Tech in some quarters and what I think can fairly be described as generalized opposition to technological innovation, it’s never been more important to remind the world that tech can be an incredibly powerful force for good.

The annual Call for Code has grown since the first challenge was announced to become one of the world’s largest “tech for good” programs. It now attracts developers from 180 countries responding to this clarion call to use advanced technologies to design cutting-edge open source-powered hybrid cloud and AI solutions that can tackle the world’s most pressing societal issues.

There’s a refreshing idealism in this program. Call for Code participants are invited to identify the particular sustainability issue they want to solve, form a team, and start building by registering on the new Global Challenge resource site hosted by BeMyApp . Once they’ve registered, participants will be able to attend Challenge Accelerator events to help fast-track their projects, learn from subject matter experts, access exclusive skills-building materials, and use exclusive toolkits, APIs, and data sets from The Weather Company and participating IBM Ecosystem partners.

But that idealism is undergirded by a pragmatic understanding that we need technology to address problems that are having a global impact. Ruth O. Davis, director of the Call for Code Challenge in IBM’s Worldwide Ecosystems group, put it succinctly in a press release, “Technology is the catalyst for scaling solutions to global problems,” she said, “from climate change to humanitarian issues, and even the global pandemic.”

“Of course, the people who participate in the Challenge are idealists in some ways,” Davis told me in an interview. “They’re very passionate about what they’re doing and want what they’re doing to make a difference. But they also know they need resources to make that happen.”

The awards to the winners of this year’s competition are commensurate with the stakes (you know, saving the world). The Grand Prize is $200,000 plus solution implementation support from IBM Ecosystem partners. First runner up gets $25,000, and third and fourth runners up get $10,000. It’s big money focused on solving big problems.

But even those participants who don’t manage to nab the brass ring have access to some incredible resources while they develop their ideas. They get a trial IBM Cloud account for 2022 that provides access to many free services without a credit card, including the ability to create Kubernetes clusters. They have access to toolkits, APIs, and data sets from Call for Code sponsors. And there are expert webinars, skill-building plans, and even mentors available.

Among the most exciting components of this program are the Challenge Accelerator events. Each Accelerator is a roughly two-week competition designed to help fast-track participants’ projects towards submission to the Global Challenge. (Global Challenge submission is not required). Each participant builds a project to address a specific and targeted use case under the theme of “Sustainability.” Each Accelerator is different; some may include technical workshops, mentoring, and additional educational content. And participants may be eligible for additional prizes.

College students will also have the opportunity to compete for the University Prize in a program created by IBM and the Clinton Global Initiative University . In 2021, more than 90,000 students across hundreds of universities around the world surpassed the program goal by nine times, the organizers said.

David Clark, the CEO of David Clark Cause, is the original Call for Code organizer. He founded the program in 2018, and launched it with IBM, the United Nations Human Rights group, and the Linux Foundatio n. The list of organizations supporting Call for Code this year includes: Arrow Electronics , Clinton Foundation and Clinton Global Initiative University , Clemson University , Esri , EY , Ingram Micro , Intuit , the Linux Foundation , Morgan Stanley , New Relic , Persistent Systems , Teach For All , United Nations Human Rights , and United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction , among others. It's worth noting, too, that Call for Code has been selected as the preferred innovation platform of the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Alliance, one of the largest public/private climate partnerships in the world.

Solutions can be submitted to this year’s event any time before the deadline of October 31, 2022. You don’t need to be on an existing team to participate. The organizers will be hosting a team building session to help participants form and build teams.Must-read information about Call for Code winners is available here .

Fifth Annual Call for Code Challenges Devs to Use their Powers for Good

Sun, 15 May 2022 13:34:21 GMT

Organizers of the fifth annual Call for Code Global Challenge have launched their annual invitation to software developers from around the world to create open-source solutions that accelerate sustainability and combat climate change.

Given the growing animus toward so-called Big Tech in some quarters and what I think can fairly be described as generalized opposition to technological innovation, it’s never been more important to remind the world that tech can be an incredibly powerful force for good. The annual Call for Code has grown since the first challenge was announced to become one of the world’s largest “tech for good” programs. It now attracts developers from 180 countries responding to this clarion call to use advanced technologies to design cutting-edge open source-powered hybrid cloud and AI solutions that can tackle the world’s most pressing societal issues.

There’s a refreshing idealism in this program. Call for Code participants are invited to identify the particular sustainability issue they want to solve, form a team, and start building by registering on the new Global Challenge resource site hosted by BeMyApp . Once they’ve registered, participants will be able to attend Challenge Accelerator events to help fast-track their projects, learn from subject matter experts, access exclusive skills-building materials, and use exclusive toolkits, APIs, and data sets from The Weather Company and participating IBM Ecosystem partners.

Each participant builds a project to address a specific and targeted use case under the theme of “Sustainability.” Each Accelerator is different; some may include technical workshops, mentoring, and additional educational content. And participants may be eligible for additional prizes.

College students will also have the opportunity to compete for the University Prize in a program created by IBM and the Clinton Global Initiative University . In 2021, more than 90,000 students across hundreds of universities around the world surpassed the program goal by nine times, the organizers said.

The list of organizations supporting Call for Code this year includes: Arrow Electronics , Clinton Foundation and Clinton Global Initiative University , Clemson University , Esri , EY , Ingram Micro , Intuit , the Linux Foundation , Morgan Stanley , New Relic , Persistent Systems , Teach For All , United Nations Human Rights , and United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction , among others.

It's worth noting, too, that Call for Code has been selected as the preferred innovation platform of the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Alliance, one of the largest public/private climate partnerships in the world.

Solutions can be submitted to this year’s event any time before the deadline of October 31, 2022. You don’t need to be on an existing team to participate. The organizers will be hosting a team building session to help participants form and build teams.

Create Impact Change with the 2022 Call for Code

Tue, 10 May 2022 13:15:36 GMT

I am always amazed at the impact we all have coming together, using our collective talents for good. Combining our collective brain power, skills, time, and resources produces stellar results – maybe it is better rendering management for films that entertain with mind-bending CGIs or improving automated software testing and deployment so developers can spend more time on innovation . Human ingenuity is amazing!

Imagine our impact when we come together for good. When we see communities who need a collective leg up in life, or when we see injustice and foresee ways to balance the scale, or when we see the devastation in the wake of natural disasters and know there is a better way. We want to make the lives of everyone better – it might seem daunting, but innovation is bred from not knowing what you can’t do.

Facilitating this drive to help is what the Call for Code ® project is about. It is, “creating and deploying open source technologies to tackle some of the world’s greatest challenges.” It is about thinking beyond yourself – using your talents to help others.

Call for Code was created by David Clark Cause with Founding Partner IBM and in partnership with United Nations Human Rights and The Linux Foundation . The goal is to inspire “developers to create practical, effective, and high-quality applications that can have an immediate and lasting impact on humanitarian issues as sustainable open source projects.” The Linux Foundation helps take the raw innovation and put in place the right tools to enable an impact across the world: instill best practices, engage external partners, provide feedback, and test them in the real world.

Call For Code 2022

The Call for Code 2022 is now open for registration. The focus this year is on sustainability. Do you have an idea to improve sustainable production, consumption, and management of resources, reduce pollution creation, and protect biodiversity? Keep reading. You don’t have a world-changing idea. Keep reading – you just might light a spark of ingenuity.

For this year, specifically, your solution should address: carbon emissions; clean energy; supply chain transparency and traceability; water scarcity and quality; reducing waste footprints; biodiversity; food insecurity; and education access and job opportunities to further environmental justice. And, no, this isn’t just for software developers. Each well-rounded team needs builders, designers, communicators, and humanitarians.

There is a total of $285,000 in prizes, all winners will receive open source support from The Linux Foundation, and all participants will receive a variety of support, such as IBM Cloud services, accelerators, expert webinars, mentors, and more.

Registration opened April 26, 2022 and final submissions are due October 31, 2022. Visit callforcode.org for detailed information and requirements and to register.

Call For Code 2021 Winners

Do you still need some inspiration? Take a few minutes to read about the 2021 winners. Half of the projects focus on racial justice – and those are the ones I want to take a moment to highlight. If you see one that inspires you, click through to learn more and for ways you can contribute:

Fair Change allows people to easily record public safety incidents in a safe and secure way with a goal of more transparency, reeducation, and reform.

TakeTwo utilizes machine learning to highlight potentially racially insensitive language on websites you are browsing in Chrome.

Legit-Info provides information on policy proposals at various levels of government. It communicates the potential impact without legalese and facilities sharing opinions with policy makers. It also gives policy makers visibility into how diverse citizens will be impacted.

Open Sentencing helps public defenders understand and document any racial disparities in the judicial system.

Five Fifths Voter helps remove impediments to voting by providing information on voter registration, voter ID laws, restrictions, purging, gerrymandering, and tools that make it easier to vote, such as childcare at the voting stations.

Incident Accuracy Reporting System enables victims and witnesses to contribute to incident reports to help give law enforcement and the public a 360-degree view of events that took place at any incident. It utilize Hyperledger blockchain to ensure transparency, trust, and that information can’t be altered.

Truth Loop is a mobile-friendly tool to see pending legislation, learn about it, record your own story related to the legislation and its impact, and share that with policy makers.

Call for Code also has seven other projects related to natural disasters and stemming the impact of climate change, including monitoring the real-time air health for wildland firefighters, democratizing earthquake monitoring, inspecting buildings, facilitating drone canvassing and delivery of supplies following a natural disaster, and helping farmers optimize water use. Finally – they have a project, Rend-o-Matic , that enables musicians to remotely record their individual track in a composition and stitches them all together into the final, virtual performance.

Join A Call For Code Project

Let’s show the world the impossible is possible.

Call for Code is making a difference! Are you experiencing some FOMO? Want to join in? Good news – fear no more. You can! And you don’t even have to be a technical person. Besides the need for a wide range of technical specialists, the projects can also utilize individuals for documentation, testing, design, UI/UX, legal, subject matter experts, advocacy, and community building. Just head over to our Call for Code page and help work on these projects.

Let’s show the world the impossible is possible.

IBM and David Clark Cause announce 2022 Call For Code Challenge

Tue, 26 Apr 2022 19:11:00 GMT

The grand prize winners will take home $200K and help change the world .

David Clark Cause, IBM, United Nations Human Rights, and the Linux Foundation today officially launched the 2022 Call For Code. On your marks, get set… save the world.

Now in its fifth year, Call for Code is an annual challenge seeking solutions to the global climate crisis and other societal issues. This year’s focus will be on sustainability, and the teams whose projects earn the top spots will earn up to $200K and continuing support from IBM and its partners.

This year’s challenge calls for solutions to the following sustainability issues:

Build effective and efficient ways to quantifiably promote, preserve, and protect biodiversity
Reduce global food insecurity through, as examples, improvements to distribution or sustainable farming practices
Remove barriers to equal education access and job opportunities to further environmental justice
Improve the ability to measure, analyze, or take decisive action on carbon emissions
Improve access to affordable and reliable clean energy
Improve supply chain transparency and traceability to bring fast and accurate visibility to sustainability issues where they arise
Address issues of water scarcity and quality
Reduce volume of and demand for materials that create the biggest waste footprint (plastics, electronics, food, textile), and encourage reuse/recycle opportunities

Per an IBM press release:

Call for Code participants can identify the sustainability issue they want to solve, form a team, and start building by registering on the new Global Challenge resource site hosted by BeMyApp.

Once registered, participants will be able to attend Challenge Accelerator events to help fast-track their projects, learn from subject matter experts, access exclusive skills-building materials, and use exclusive toolkits, APIs, and data sets from The Weather Company and participating IBM Ecosystem partners.

Previous winners include:

2018: Project Owl
2019: Prometeo
2020: Agrolly
2021: Saaf Water

Quick take: this is a fantastic opportunity. Over the past five years the Call for Code community has grown to around half a million innovators from 180 different countries.
It’s also been selected as the preferred innovation platform of the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Alliance .Call for Code participants join a global force for good the moment they sign up. They get access to IBM partner ecosystem technologies such as cloud services, machine learning models, and developer support.

But, best of all, those who make it to the finals will work with global technology experts to implement their solutions. The winners get to be the change they wish to see, with the force of IBM and its partners’ industry position helping them every step of the way.
Get more information and sign your team up here at the official Call for Code website .

2022 Call for Code Global Challenge Urges Developers to Create Solutions that Accelerate Sustainability and Take On Climate Change

Tue, 26 Apr 2022 18:19:00 GMT

David Clark Cause, IBM, United Nations Human Rights, the Linux Foundation and IBM Ecosystem partners Arrow Electronics, EY, Ingram Micro, Intuit, New Relic and Persistent Systems to support Call for Code developers from 180 nations with open source-powered hybrid cloud and AI solutions

Call for Code selected as preferred innovation platform of Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Alliance, one of the largest public/private climate partnerships

NEW YORK, April 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Call for Code Creator David Clark Cause , in partnership with Founding Partner IBM , United Nations Human Rights and the Linux Foundation , today launched the 2022 Call for Code Global Challenge , the largest and most ambitious effort bringing together developers and problem solvers to use open innovation to help accelerate sustainability and combat climate change.

Now in its fifth year, Call for Code galvanized a community of more than a half million developers, students, and problem solvers from 180 nations who answered the call to use advanced technologies to design cutting-edge open source-powered hybrid cloud and AI solutions that can tackle the world's most pressing societal issues.

The 2022 Call for Code Global Challenge opens today, and solutions can be submitted any time before the deadline of October 31, 2022. The Grand Prize winner will receive $200,000 and solution implementation support from IBM Ecosystem partners.

Call for Code participants can identify the sustainability issue they want to solve, form a team, and start building by registering on the new Global Challenge resource site hosted by BeMyApp . Once registered, participants will be able to attend Challenge Accelerator events to help fast-track their projects, learn from subject matter experts, access exclusive skills-building materials, and use exclusive toolkits, APIs, and data sets from The Weather Company and participating IBM Ecosystem partners.

Call for Code has also been selected as the preferred innovation platform of the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Alliance, one of the largest public/private climate partnerships in the world. The alliance and its global partner United Nations Human Rights are working to empower solutions and reframe climate change as a human rights crisis due to its disproportionate impact on women, people of color, and impoverished and marginalized communities.

With a fast-growing alliance of policy-makers, NGOs, foundations, corporations, academics, scientists, and developers, Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Alliance and United Nations Human Rights are supported by celebrities including Leonardo DiCaprio, Quincy Jones, Ellen DeGeneres, Camila Cabello, Cher, Pitbull, LL Cool J, Cyndi Lauper, Jason Mraz, and Billie Porter, among others.

"On behalf of Call for Code, we're honored to be selected as the preferred innovation platform for the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Alliance," said David Clark, CEO of David Clark Cause, and Creator of Call for Code. "As the Global Challenge opens today, we're excited to utilize our expansive platform to help people in need by calling on developers worldwide to innovate software that can mitigate and reverse the effects of climate change through sustainable solutions."

"From rising sea levels, extreme weather events, wildfires and droughts, to food insecurity, health impacts, mass migrations, and increasing global conflict, there is no denying that climate change is a humanitarian crisis. With its global reach and history of success over the years, we're excited to work with Call for Code, as it has proven to be the gold standard when it comes to engaging developers around the world to innovate for social good," said Bill Stark, Chief Impact Officer, Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Alliance.

2022 Call for Code Global Challenge Open for Submissions

Call for Code, IBM, and IBM Ecosystem partners Arrow Electronics , EY , Ingram Micro , Intuit , New Relic , and Persistent Systems , are providing participants with access to technical resources and subject matter experts during themed accelerator sessions, which can help them pinpoint problems to solve. Applications can be built using open source-powered software including Red Hat OpenShift , IBM Cloud , IBM Watson , IBM LinuxOne Community Cloud from IBM zSystems and IBM Blockchain , as well as APIs from IBM's The Weather Company .

"We have a long and trusted partnership of 19+ years with IBM and we share a common vision to create solutions that help address some of the world's most important social challenges," said Sandeep Kalra, CEO and Executive Director, Persistent Systems. "We are eager to help address some of the many sustainability challenges through Call for Code with IBM and the developer community, employing open source-powered hybrid cloud and AI solutions that can scale."

"Technology is the catalyst for scaling solutions to global problems – from climate change to humanitarian issues, and even the global pandemic," said Ruth Davis, director, Call for Code, IBM. "IBM along with Call for Code and these ecosystem partners are dedicated to taking on the complex challenge of sustainability and encourage problem solvers around the world to take part."

Teams of developers and problem solvers are asked to innovate solutions that address the diverse challenges aligned to sustainability and the impacts of climate change. For example, solutions can include new ways to improve sustainable production, consumption, and management of resources, reduce pollution creation, and protect biodiversity to create a greener future, among others. Solutions may also address areas such as: how to improve the ability to measure, analyze, or take decisive action on carbon emissions; refine supply chain transparency and traceability to bring fast and accurate visibility to sustainability issues where they arise; reduce volume of and demand for materials that create the biggest waste footprint; and encourage reuse/recycle opportunities.

University students will have the opportunity to win the University Prize, a program created in partnership between IBM and Clinton Global Initiative University .[1] In 2021, more than 90,000 students across hundreds of universities around the world, surpassed the program goal by nine times.

2021 Call for Code Global Challenge winner, Saaf water , a team of India-based university students, recently completed a successful test of its accessible water quality sensor and analytics platform at a housing complex in Goa, India. The test helped Saaf water analyze the building's water quality and they were able to update their installation process for future tests.

This global initiative is a rallying cry to developers to use their mastery of the latest technologies to drive positive and long-lasting change across the world through code. Organizations supporting Call for Code this year are: Arrow Electronics , Clinton Foundation and Clinton Global Initiative University , Clemson University , Esri , EY , Ingram Micro , Intuit , the Linux Foundation , Manush Labs , Morgan Stanley , New Relic , Persistent Systems , Teach For All , United Nations Human Rights , United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction , and many more.

For more information visit:
www.callforcode.org
www.righthererightnow.global

Follow:
@CallforCode @rhrn_climate
@UNHumanRights

Contact:
Rebekah Alperin
Call for Code/Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Alliance
info@gostoryboard.com

Call for Code 2022 rallies developers to come up with climate change solutions

Tue, 26 Apr 2022 13:05:14 GMT

This year’s Call for Code hackathon will focus on climate change and rally developers to come up with innovative solutions to one of humanity’s biggest challenges.

Call for Code was created by David Clark Cause in partnership with IBM . Other major partners include the UN Human Rights Office and the Linux Foundation .

“Technology is the catalyst for scaling solutions to global problems – from climate change to humanitarian issues, and even the global pandemic,” said Ruth Davis, Director of Call for Code at IBM.

“IBM along with Call for Code and these ecosystem partners are dedicated to taking on the complex challenge of sustainability and encourage problem-solvers around the world to take part.”

Additional organisations supporting this year’s event include Arrow Electronics , Clinton Foundation and Clinton Global Initiative University , Clemson University , Esri , EY , Ingram Micro , Intuit , Morgan Stanley , New Relic , Persistent Systems , Teach For All , UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction , and many others.

The hackathon is now in its fifth year and has created a community of more than half a million developers, students, and problem-solvers across 180 nations.

Participants can use some of the world’s most powerful tools to solve some of its biggest problems including Red Hat OpenShift , IBM Cloud , IBM Watson , IBM LinuxOne Community Cloud from IBM zSystems and IBM Blockchain , as well as APIs from IBM’s The Weather Company .

This year’s event has been selected as the innovation platform for the ‘ Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Alliance ’—designed to be one of the largest public-private climate partnerships in the world. The alliance is keen to frame climate change as much as a human rights crisis as an environmental catastrophe.

“From rising sea levels, extreme weather events, wildfires, and droughts, to food insecurity, health impacts, mass migrations, and increasing global conflict, there is no denying that climate change is a humanitarian crisis,” said Bill Stark, Chief Impact Officer of the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Alliance.

“With its global reach and history of success over the years, we’re excited to work with Call for Code, as it has proven to be the gold standard when it comes to engaging developers around the world to innovate for social good.”

Any budding participant should begin thinking about what particular sustainability challenge they want to tackle. After building a team, they can register here and get to work on creating their solution to improve the Earth’s long-term prognosis.

The Grand Prize winner of this year’s event will receive $200,000 along with solution implementation support from IBM Ecosystem partners.

“As the Global Challenge opens today, we’re excited to utilise our expansive platform to help people in need by calling on developers worldwide to innovate software that can mitigate and reverse the effects of climate change through sustainable solutions,” said David Clark, CEO of David Clark Cause and Creator of Call for Code.

Call for Code kicks off today (26 April 2022) and the deadline for submissions is 31 October 2022.

IBM Launches 2022 Call For Code Global Challenge

Tue, 26 Apr 2022 12:01:37 GMT

The 2022 Call for Code Global Challenge is officially underway.

The 2022 Call for Code Global Challenge, an initiative to combat climate change with open-source-powered technology, is officially underway.

The competition was announced Tuesday morning by IBM, along with Call for Code creator David Clark Cause, charitable partner United Nations Human Rights, and the Linux Foundation.

"As the Global Challenge opens today, we’re excited to utilize our expansive platform to help people in need by calling on developers worldwide to innovate software that can mitigate and reverse the effects of climate change through sustainable solutions," David Clark, CEO of the David Clark Cause, said in a news release.

IBM is the parent company of weather.com and The Weather Company.

In its fifth year, Call for Code has brought together a half-million developers, students and problem-solvers from 180 nations.

The 2022 competition asks entrants to design and build an open-source solution in the cloud that includes one of the following:

Improve the ability to measure, analyze or take decisive action on carbon emissions.
Improve access to affordable and reliable clean energy.
Improve supply chain transparency and traceability.
Address issues of water scarcity and quality.
Reduce volume and demand and encourage recycling of materials that create the biggest waste footprint, such as plastics, electronics, food and textiles.

"As the United Nations recently emphasized in their 2022 climate report, impactful sustainability actions are needed now to curb the worst consequences of climate change," IBM says on its Call for Code website. "Sustainability practices and solutions need to benefit all communities, but especially those communities that have been marginalized and polluted in the past. Technology is key, as it can provide effective, scalable solutions to address sustainability challenges."

Past winners say Call for Code allowed them to make their vision a reality.

"Yesterday, it was four of us dreaming, and today, we are doing something really meaningful at a global level," Chimegsaikhan (Chimka) Munkhbayar, head of sales and marketing in Asia for Agrolly, an app that supports small farmers and won Call for Code 2020, told weather.com in a previous interview.

IBM works with winning teams to incubate and deploy their solutions in the real world. The winning team also receives $200,000.

Last year's winner was an innovative water-quality monitoring device called Saaf Water . Other finalists included Green Farm, a platform designed to connect small farmers with consumers and help solve problems faced by community-supported agricultural organizations; Project Scavenger, an app that helps users safely dispose of e-waste; Honestly, an online browser extension to alert users to things like bad press on a brand they are shopping, provide relevant ratings aggregated from outside sources and list carbon footprint and supply chain data; and Plenti, an app to help prevent food waste at home.

Trashtag, a technology to verify, track, and reward waste removal in outdoor areas, took the top prize in the university category last year.

The deadline for 2022 entries is Oct. 31.

IBM and David Clark Cause Crown Saaf Water Winner of 4th Annual Call for Code Global Challenge

Wed, 17 Nov 2021 14:30:00 GMT

Created to combat water quality-related deaths, the Saaf Water sensor and analytics platform for rural localities wins 2021 Call for Code Global Challenge

Technology using AI, Blockchain, and Cloud to verify, track, and reward waste removal in outdoor areas wins Call for Code University Edition prize

ARMONK, N.Y., Nov. 16, 2021 / PRNewswire / -- Today, Call for Code founding partner IBM (NYSE: IBM ) and its creator, David Clark Cause , announced the winner of the fourth annual Call for Code Global Challenge, which invited innovators across the globe to combat climate change with open source-powered technology. Call for Code is the largest and most ambitious effort to bring together the world's software developers to take on pressing societal issues by using the latest advanced technologies to problem solve and create cutting-edge solutions. The top prize this year went to Saaf Water , an accessible water quality sensor and analytics platform created, in particular, for people living in rural localities.

Saaf Water will receive $200,000 and support to incubate, test, and deploy their solution from the IBM Service Corps and expert partners in the Call for Code ecosystem. The India-based team will also receive assistance from The Linux Foundation to open source their application so developers around the world can improve, scale, and use the technology.

"The groundwater quality monitoring tool developed by Saaf Water is promising, timely, and appears to have great potential for use by communities relying on groundwater for domestic use," said Dr. Annapurna Vancheswaran, Managing Director, The Nature Conservancy – India. "This open-source technology could help avoid water-related health risks by indicating unsafe water quality. We certainly Look forward to the tool being scaled up for the benefit of communities."

A panel of some of the most eminent leaders in sustainability, business and technology, including former President Bill Clinton , awarded Saaf Water the grand prize. Four runners-up were also recognized. Each finalist created a solution to problems addressing the climate change competition's three sub-themes: clean water and sanitation; zero hunger; and responsible production and green consumption.

To date, more than 20,000 Call for Code applications have been built using open source-powered software such as Red Hat OpenShift , IBM Cloud , IBM Watson , and IBM Blockchain , as well as data from IBM's The Weather Company and developer resources and APIs from partners like Esri and Twilio . Fourteen Call for Code projects have been adopted into open governance by the Linux Foundation.

"It's incredibly inspiring to see the Call for Code global movement continue to grow, now with more than 500,000 developers and problem solvers participating across 180 nations," said Bob Lord, senior vice president, worldwide ecosystems, IBM. "What makes Call for Code unique is the impact it is making on the ground through our deployments in communities around the world. The potential of these technologies, like Saaf Water, are vast and have the potential help save lives."

2021 Top Solutions Tackling Climate Change

Four climate solutions were honored in addition to Saaf Water: Green Farm , an app to make agriculture more sustainable by, among other things, connecting local producers and consumers to each other, was awarded second place and $25,000; Project Scavenger , an app to enable individuals to responsibly dispose of their devices, was awarded third place and $25,000; Honestly , an online browser extension aimed at passing supply chain transparency to consumers, was awarded fourth place and $10,000; and Plenti , a mobile application designed to make inventory tracking and waste measurement processes user-friendly and easy to do at home, was awarded fifth place and $10,000.

"Since we launched Call for Code in 2018, developers and innovators from around the world continue to answer the call," said David Clark, Call for Code creator, and CEO of David Clark Cause. "I continue to be amazed by the impact of Call for Code, in no small part thanks to the global reach and passion of IBMers driving it forward around the world, and to the support of our dedicated partners including The Linux Foundation and United Nations Human Rights."

In total, 42 regional finalists and the local winners among them from Asia Pacific; Europe; Greater China; India; Latin America; the Middle East and Africa; and North America were celebrated at the event.

Winner in the University Category

Chelsea Clinton, vice chair, The Clinton Foundation , announced the winner of the Call for Code University Edition, a collaboration between IBM and the Clinton Global Initiative University .

Trashtag , technology using AI, blockchain, and cloud to verify, track, and reward waste removal in outdoor areas, took the top prize and will receive $10,000 as well as an invitation for team members to interview for potential roles at IBM.

Bringing Call for Code solutions to life through real-world deployments

The Call for Code ecosystem brings solutions to life through incubation and real-world deployments. Since winning the 2020 Call for Code Global Challenge, Agrolly has scaled its personalized farming technology app to more than 1,600 rural farmers across India and Mongolia.

In 2021, Prometeo , the winner of the 2019 Call for Code Global Challenge, open sourced its firefighter health monitoring and safety technology through the Pyrrha project governed by The Linux Foundation.

Additionally, during National Voter Education Week in October, IBM and the YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles deployed Call for Code for Racial Justice project Five Fifths Voter , a web-based application to help educate, empower and enable voters who are part of underrepresented and disenfranchised communities, in the United States.Today's announcements came during a virtual event, the "2021 Call for Code Awards: Solving the world's problems with tech." Watch the event replay here .

About IBM
IBM is the global leader in hybrid cloud and AI, serving clients in more than 170 countries. More than 3,500 clients use our hybrid cloud platform to accelerate their digital transformation journeys and, in total, more than 30,000 of them have turned to IBM to unlock value from their data — this client list includes nine out of ten of the world's largest banks. With this foundation, we continue to leverage Red Hat OpenShift as the leading platform to address our clients' business needs: A hybrid cloud platform that is open, flexible and secure. Guided by principles of trust, transparency and support for a more inclusive society, IBM also is committed to being a responsible steward of technology and a force for good in the world. For more information, visit: www.ibm.com .

This $30 million global initiative is a rallying cry to developers to use their mastery of the latest technologies to drive positive and long-lasting change across the world through code. The Call for Code community includes United Nations Human Rights , The Linux Foundation , United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction , Clinton Foundation and Clinton Global Initiative University , Arrow Electronics , Ingram Micro , Intuit , Caribbean Girls Hack , Kode With Klossy , World Institute on Disability , Esri , Samsung , Black Girls Code , Heifer International , The Nature Conservancy , charity:water and many more.

Call for Code global winning solutions are further developed, incubated, and deployed as sustainable open source projects with support from the community to ensure they can drive positive change.

IBM Media Contacts:

Chris Blake
blakechr@us.ibm.com
415-613-1120

Mike Sefanov
Mike.sefanov@ibm.com
650-281-8099

IBM, David Clark Cause Award Saaf Water Top Call for Code Prize

Wed, 17 Nov 2021 11:55:28 GMT

Winners of the 2021 Call for Code Global Challenge were announced Tuesday night in New York.

An innovative water-quality monitoring device called Saaf Water is winner of the 2021 Call for Code Global Challenge.

The annual Call for Code competition, now in its fourth year, is a partnership between the David Clark Cause, United Nations Human Rights, the Linux Foundation and IBM, the parent company of weather.com and The Weather Company.

Winners were announced at a ceremony Tuesday night in New York.

Saaf Water will receive $200,000 and support to incubate, test, and deploy their solution from the IBM Service Corps and expert partners in the Call for Code ecosystem, and assistance from The Linux Foundation to open source their application.

Saaf Water is a cellular-enabled water-quality monitoring device designed to be universally compatible with various types of community water pumps. It tracks characteristics such as dissolved solids, turbidity, temperature and pH and uses artificial intelligence to predict when water quality can go bad.

If problems are detected, an onsite visual indicator is triggered to alert those using the system. There is also a dashboard that can be viewed in a web browser and sent through SMS messaging to subscribed users.

“The groundwater quality monitoring tool developed by Saaf Water is promising, timely, and appears to have great potential for use by communities relying on groundwater for domestic use,” Annapurna Vancheswaran, managing director of The Nature Conservancy – India, said in a news release. “This open-source technology could help avoid water-related health risks by indicating unsafe water quality. We certainly look forward to the tool being scaled up for the benefit of communities.”

Contaminated drinking water is estimated to contribute to at least 480,000 deaths a year worldwide and at least 2 billion people use a contaminated water source, according to the World Health Organization.

“Saaf” is a Hindi word for “clean” and the team behind it took inspiration from their native India and their own lives. Team member Hrishikesh Bhandari's mother became ill after drinking water from her village's groundwater supply, which was assumed to be safe. The other Saaf team members all have friends or family members impacted by contaminated water.

Fittingly, this year's Call for Code Global Challenge was launched on World Water Day.

Saaf Water was one of five finalists in the competition. Green Farm, a platform designed to connect small farmers with consumers and help solve problems faced by community supported agricultural organizations, was awarded second place and $25,000; Project Scavenger, an app that helps users safely dispose of e-waste, received third place and $25,000; Honestly, an online browser extension that will alert users to things like bad press on a brand they are shopping, provide relevant ratings aggregated from outside sources and list carbon footprint and supply chain data, took fourth place and earned $10,000; Plenti, an app to help prevent food waste at home was awarded fifth place and $10,000.

Trashtag, a technology to verify, track, and reward waste removal in outdoor areas, took the top prize in the university category and will receive $10,000 as well as an invitation for team members to interview for potential roles at IBM.

To date, more than 20,000 Call for Code applications have been built using open source-powered software, with more than 500,000 developers and problem solvers participating across 180 nations.

“What makes Call for Code unique is the impact it is making on the ground through our deployments in communities around the world,” Bob Lord, senior vice president of worldwide ecosystems for IBM, said in a news release. “The potential of these technologies, like Saaf Water, are vast and have the potential help save lives.”

IBM announces Call for Code 2021 grand prize winner

Wed, 17 Nov 2021 11:40:10 GMT

IBM and David Clark Cause just announced Saaf Water as this year’s 2021 grand prize winner!

Saaf Water is the first team from India to take the grand prize and their amazing story represents everything that’s good and necessary about the Call for Code challenge.

Per an IBM press release:

Saaf Water will receive $200,000 and support to incubate, test, and deploy their solution from the IBM Service Corpsand expert partners in the Call for Code ecosystem. The India-based team will also receive assistance from The Linux Foundation to open source their application so developers around the world can improve, scale, and use the technology.

This year’s winners join a prestigious lineup of past victors including Project Owl and Promoteo , and Agrolly , whose winning solutions have gone on to inspire future participants and help mitigate the impact of natural disasters, climate change, and other challenges through a combination of open-source and community-driven corporate support.

The Call for Code challenge is an opportunity to be the change you wish to see, only instead of going at it alone, you get the support of the Linux Foundation, David Clarke Cause, and IBM’s technology experts.

In the case of Saaf Water, a team of young people organized a multimodal technology solution to a problem that’s literally plagued humanity since the inception of civilization. They want to make sure we know whether our water is safe to drink or not.

This is a problem that affects communities of every stripe around the globe. And, for the members of the Saaf Water team, this was a problem that was personal.

Per IBM:

In Bihar, India, nine members of the same family died over the past 20 years due to sicknesses linked to arsenic contamination of groundwater. More have experienced illness, including the mother of one of the Saaf Water team members, who lives in Goa, India.

Saaf Water’s solution is equal parts innovation and education. They developed an interface that handles at-source testing and community notifications. In essence, the team has democratized access to information about water quality in a way that can both help local agents ensure quality and inform the community at-large when they’re at risk.

TNW spoke with the Saaf Water team and, through a pair of representatives, they explained how not only is time precious when contamination sets in, but some water sources experience seasonal contamination. This means a source could go bad in-between test cycles.

Saaf Water’s solution will almost certainly save lives. And the team credits the challenge itself for inspiring them. Many of the group’s members worked with an IBM internship program during their high school years and, after being inspired by the work done by Project Owl, they decided to enter the competition themselves.

We’re overjoyed to extend our heartiest congratulations to Saaf Water. Not only are they joining a prestigious group of past winners, but they’ve clearly demonstrated how valuable the Call for Code challenge truly is.

Samsung and IBM Announce Call for Code Challenge to Honor Everyday Heroes

Tue, 26 Oct 2021 11:47:25 GMT

Samsung and IBM continue to build upon long-standing strategic partnership with challenge for developers using Samsung and IBM technology

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and IBM (NYSE: IBM ) today announced the Call for Code Honoring Everyday Heroes Challenge for enterprise developers to encourage the development of new technology solutions to help everyday heroes. The Challenge, which was unveiled during the Samsung Developer Conference (SDC) , will look to address challenges faced by delivery personnel, childcare workers, healthcare frontline workers, educators, and many more who have been invaluable to society during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Application submissions will be evaluated by a judging panel from IBM and Samsung and the winner will receive a cash prize, Samsung devices, and deployment support for their solution.

The Challenge is part of the broader Call for Code global program, which invites developers and problem-solvers around the world to build and contribute to open source technology projects that address some of the most pressing global issues.

“Our everyday heroes have tirelessly served us throughout the pandemic and we want to make their lives, and the lives of others around the world, easier and productive with new levels of connectivity and insights from technology,” said KC Choi, EVP and Head of Global Mobile B2B Team, Samsung Electronics.

“To achieve this, innovation must be open. That’s why we’ve been working closely with IBM as well as our valued developer communities using open source platforms. It’s also why I’m honored to serve as an ‘ Eminent Judge ’ for this year’s 2021 Call for Code Global Challenge, along with other worldwide leaders in sustainability, business and technology. I look forward to seeing the submissions for both Call for Code challenges come to life.”

Submissions for the Call for Code Honoring Everyday Heroes Challenge must be able to run on a Samsung tablet, smartphone, and/or wearable device and make use of one or more IBM open hybrid cloud technologies such as IBM Cloud or IBM Watson. Participants will also have access to Samsung toolkits, as well as data from The Weather Company. The deadline for submissions is November 20 ^th , with the winner announced on December 9 ^th . In addition to Samsung technology and a cash prize from IBM, the winner will receive support from both companies to help bring their solution to life to make a real difference for everyday heroes.

“IBM and Samsung have a long history of proven success working together to improve business outcomes for clients and also for social good,” said Bob Lord, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Ecosystems at IBM. “ Earlier this year , IBM, Samsung, and others worked together to deploy the 2019 Call for Code Global Challenge winning solution, Prometeo . I look forward to seeing how developers can use our open technologies now to benefit some of the most deserving people in the world today, our everyday heroes.”

The partnership between Samsung and IBM extends over 30 years, starting with work on semiconductors and now mobility, AI, 5G, Industry 4.0 and networks . At SDC, Samsung and IBM Consulting are announcing a collaboration to modernize hybrid work environments with mobile experiences optimized for the Galaxy Z Fold3, co-designed with major financial services institutions.

Additionally, to accelerate the convergence of Industry 4.0 between cloud-native applications and mobility, IBM and Samsung are researching ways to bring containerized AI workloads to Samsung Android devices with IBM Edge Application Manager. This effort focuses on using containers on Samsung devices to enable workloads to be flexibly deployed, managed and processed across premises such as factories, retail stores, warehouses, hotels and distribution centers to help drive faster development of powerful new use cases for mobile and edge computing.

Samsung and IBM continue to work together to create services that enable businesses and enterprise developers to take full advantage of cutting-edge networks, mobility and analytics.

Call for Code: A Challenge at Global Level

Wed, 22 Sep 2021 12:55:27 GMT

The global impact of climate change and the need for drastic action become clearer every day. The far-reaching and devastating effects of climate change are in front of everybody’s eyes. The most pressing global issues of our time can be addressed by deploying new ideas in combination with good old-fashioned competence.

Everybody can make a difference, but for developers there’s a special challenge – a chance to prove themselves at a global level while building and enriching skills. IBM has been part of the Call for Code Global Challenge for a long time–2021 marks the fourth year of their support for the initiative.

Many of the changes that make the most difference will be found in the form of ideas coded in software. “Real code helping real people” is one of the key mottos used to promote this approach. Call for Code actively supports the best solutions to bring technology to communities in need, in partnership with the Linux Foundation and the United Nations.

The Call for Code community includes over 400,000 developers, data scientists, and problem solvers from 179 nations. Contributors from around the world have created more than 15,000 apps for humanitarian issues.

The most challenging scenarios for the Earth and her people are laid out in the list of seventeen Sustainable Development Goals compiled by the United Nations. The IBM Call for Code Global Challenge 2021 and its three tracks ( Zero-Hunger , Clean Water , and Production ) is described in this article .

A full year of competition

The Call for Code schedule is a full year of dates and events that allow ingenious developers and creative minds to expand their scope to the global level. CFC 2021 Key Dates in 2021 include the Challenge opening on March 22nd, World Water Day.

Submissions Close on July 31st, and Finalists are announced on October 5th. The final official step, the announcement of the Winner, will take place on November 16th at the Global Award Celebration.

Judges

The European finalists will be judged by a European team of judges , including: Prof. Tuula Tuhkanen, University of Jyvaskylä, Department of Biology and Environment Science; Marc Peters, Distinguished Engineer and CTO Energy, Environment & Utilities Europe, IBM; James Robey, Global Head of Environmental Sustainability, Capgemini; and Timo Wielink, Head of Product Development Project OWL, a previous winner.

Timo’s experience provides the best possible testimonial to the step-up that the IBM Global Challenge can offer to ingenious minds. The inspiring story behind his prize-winning ‘Project Owl’ can be read in a previous article .

Bente’s Heroes, a Regional winner

Call for Code’s Regional Winner Europe is TheHeroLoop , a responsive Web3.0 web app that uses AI to match volunteers – called Heroes, with citizens in need – called Loopers. Everyone can be a hero, and every “looper” can create a hero by repeating requests for help.

Citizens anonymously login, using a Hiro wallet, and are rewarded in various ways for doing good deeds. The app is a place to be matched with others with the same interests—somewhere you can contribute to your community’s health and well-being, and help our world reach the UN’s SDG goals for 2030.

The team received $10K and solution deployment support from IBM Dev Advocates to make their solution available to everyone.

Bente Acking, Founder of The Hero Loop, helps to clarify what the Call For Code Global Challenge means in practice. “If you have an idea, don’t let anything stop you!”, suggests Bente, demonstrating her strong commitment to success.

“I had just won a hackathon on Covid and the use of AI, so I decided to join CFC”, Bente explains, confirming one of the scouting patterns that often leads to participation in the challenge. “I knew Slack very well from having worked with it for a long time”.

Communication skills are essential to effective team building, a task that Bente has really mastered. “I was indeed surprised by the variety of people and skills I found this time. In particular, I was looking for two skills, one designer and one data scientist, and I found them in a short time”.

The Hero Loop is about connecting volunteers around the world with local people in need, securely, and without tracking any personal data.

A safe and secure encrypted blockchain authentication ensures privacy is protected, so everybody is anonymous in TheHeroLoop. TheHeroLoop matches individuals in need (Loopers) with volunteers (Heroes) based on their location within a 20 kilometer radius, and can be used worldwide.

The app provides Loopers with the option to ask for a specific task to be done and allows them to specify a certain time.

“We are inclusive”, the website proudly states; “if you don’t have Internet, or don’t like to use it, it’s possible to call a number with your button phone to get help within your zip-code area”.

Bente had an idea but didn’t have the resources or expertise to build the app by herself, though she knew how to cope with this. Bente’s conclusion is that anyone with an idea that fits the competition theme can join the community and work with others to build a team, submit an entry, and continue developing the project.

One important part of participating in world-class challenges is connecting with the organization—preparation of paperwork, submission preparation and all the other necessary steps. “It took time to submit, describing everything with the asked detail, but it was a great time. Jury member panel and all IBM people in general were amazing.”

Inspiring stories from other participants are always moving. It seems like a sense of wonder catches hold of everyone who enters this Challenge. “I myself experienced a sense of wonder getting inside CFC”, the inventor of The Hero Loop tells us. “C4C is a totally different experience from any other hackathon-like event I have ever seen.

People from Ghana, Congo, India… different areas, different mindsets: participating in C4C was like starting a trip. Everything is stretched out in CFC. We got to know each other.”

That depth of knowing each other allows the community to grow fast. The Hero Loop grew based on more than thirty people spending their free time on the project. “I now raised money myself through taking on a consultant role to pay our people, totalling 100,000$”, confesses Bente, underlining what a determined developer can achieve.

The final steps of The Hero Loop’s Project were always going to be the most important. The staff is giving the silverware its final polish, i.e., finishing the testing, in September. Three pilots have been discussed to start with: in the Swedish city of Helsingborg, in Nairobi, capital city of Kenya, and in New York City. “It’s all about helping people, allowing communities to grow, and making the world a better place.”

Technically speaking, the team makes use of a wide range of the best pieces of open-source software available today. The key services used in their solution are:

OpenShift in particular is one of the most interesting technologies used in developing the Hero Loop solution.

IBM and startup Grillo seek to bring low-cost, early-warning earthquake detection devices to Puerto Rico

Wed, 09 Jun 2021 19:35:00 GMT

With the backing of the Clinton Global Initiative, the partners are calling on the open-source community to help the Caribbean island implement economically friendly EEW systems.

In January 2020, Puerto Rico was throttled by earthquakes over a stretch of several weeks, wreaking havoc on homes, infrastructure and causing displacement of a mass of its citizens. According to some estimates, the economic toll from earthquakes in the Greater Antilles area that year resulted in $3.1 billion in damages. The Caribbean, in general, is a highly seismic region because of its location —sitting within an intersection of juggernaut tectonic plates.

And, what's more, traditional earthquake early warning (EEW) systems, which are designed to provide people with time to protect themselves from seismic events, are extremely expensive, resulting in most countries and territories not having full-spectrum ones that cover their entire regions. Enter Grillo, which calls itself a "Seismology-as-a-Service" startup, and one that wants to change the affordability and stretch of such systems. In collaboration with IBM and the Clinton Global Initiative and others, it is set to provide Puerto Rico with an open-sourced, EEW alternative.

Dubbed OpenEEW (open-source earthquake early warning), Grillo has developed sensors (with assistance from also the Linux Foundation) that are relatively cheap, open-source hardware designs — ones that can quickly detect if the ground moves, access cloud-based algorithms to verify an earthquake is happening (or about to), and then provide alerts to people via a mobile app or wearable.

More specifically, Grillo is cutting EEW overhead by using IoT, cloud computing and AI, as well as Node-RED analysis tools and a Docker-centered container solution. As Grillo has it, OpenEEW is a "promising low-cost, accessible option using off-the-shelf technology instead of the million-dollar systems often used today."

Last month, the former U.S. president, Bill Clinton, announced $25,000 in credits and open-source contributions from IBM, in conjunction with Grillo's proposed plans. In addition, the Puerto Rico Science Trust is promising funding for the project as well.

Since 2017, Grillo has launched its kits in Mexico, Chile and Costa Rica. And the company now wants to make its technology deployable in other seismically active regions, such as Nepal and New Zealand. Puerto Rico will be the first location in the Caribbean to land the open-source devices (for now, around 90 of them are set to be placed around the island).

And why do so few countries have nationwide earthquake early warning systems in the first place? The asking price for the implementation, Andres Meira, the Grillo co-founder told TechRepublic. "The Japanese EEW is said to have cost around $1 billion," Meira says. Adding: "Others such as ShakeAlert and the Mexican Seismic Alert System (SASMEX) regularly require 10s of millions of USD."

The early-detection technology ShakeAlert, which was created by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), is the EEW platform the U.S. currently uses for the West Coast (that is, in California, Oregon and Washington). SASMEX initiated operations in 1993 and has come with a hefty price as well.

Where do open-source volunteers factor into the project? According to Pedro Cruz, a developer advocate at IBM, "anyone from the open source community can get involved with and help OpenEEW; not just in Puerto Rico, but all over the world."

Cruz says "different communities across the world can help by advancing the different components (sensors, algorithms, alert devices) and by deploying sensor networks in different countries."

As TechRepublic previously reported, "[u]nlike a national seismic platform, the team's open-source EEW project is designed to create a global partnership rather than a nationalized network, allowing people around the globe to deploy these systems in their communities as part of a larger humanitarian patchwork of sensors."

OpenEEW came about from the Call for Code, an initiative to give solutions, via technology, that can be deployed in the communities with the greatest needs and make change.

"Since 2018 this movement," Cruz said, "has grown to over 400,000 participants across 179 nations, and developers have already created more than 15,000 applications using IBM technologies."

Call for Code was started by the global leader David Clark Cause, with IBM serving as its founding partner.

In a press release, Grillo and IBM say the detection code for their devices can use help by programmer volunteers and is being developed in Python and pushed out in Kubernetes. Moreover, Grillo says it is currently working on a "Carbon/React dashboard," which the public will be able to see and interact with the OpenEEW, as well as see recent earthquake occurrences.

Meira says "there are also individual citizen scientists who are installing their own OpenEEW sensors and connecting to our global system in the cloud." He adds that they are hoping that "eventually sufficient density of these stations" come about so "that a global EEW emerges."

On OpenEEW's website , it lays out how one can go about deploying sensors, implement detectors for earthquakes and send out alerts about one that may occur.

Quincy Jones, Barbra Streisand, Cher Align With United Nations’ ‘Call for Code’ Initiative

Fri, 04 Jun 2021 16:29:00 GMT

Carole King, Rod Stewart, Melissa Etheridge, Sia, Kesha also join call for developers to create solutions to climate change issues

Quincy Jones, Barbra Streisand, Cher, Carole King, and Rod Stewart are among the artists who will take part in the United Nations Human Rights’ Call for Code initiative on Saturday, June 5th, which is also UN World Environment Day.

Melissa Etheridge, Sia, Kesha, Perry Farrell, Pitbull, and Tegan & Sara — as well as actors like Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, Pierce Brosnan, Don Cheadle, and Padma Lakshmi — will also take part in the social media initiative that is “a call to action, encouraging developers and innovators to use cutting-edge technologies to immediately create solutions for critical issues stemming from the global climate change.”

Since 2018, nearly 180 nations have signed on for the Call for Code initiative, a partnership between the David Clark Cause, UN Human Rights, and IBM, which pledged $30 million to the project.

“United Nation Human Rights has helped guide the Climate Change Call for Code effort, as they continue to work with the 193 member states to address the unfolding human rights crisis posed by climate change,” David Clark said in a statement. “We also extend our deepest gratitude to IBM CEO Arvind Krishna, and the entire IBM family for their support and unparalleled leadership in harnessing the Call for Code platform to sign up more than 400,000 developers to help address world problems.”

Esri and IBM Team Up to Take on Climate Change with Call for Code

Tue, 11 May 2021 12:16:40 GMT

May 11, 2021 — Esri, the global leader in location intelligence, today announced it is joining the fourth annual Call for Code Global Challenge. Created by David Clark Cause and launched in partnership with IBM, United Nations Human Rights, and the Linux Foundation, Call for Code is designed to make an immediate and lasting global impact on humanitarian issues, using open-source-powered technology. In this year’s competition, software developers and innovators around the world will take on climate change with open-source software, including Red Hat OpenShift, IBM Cloud, IBM Watson, IBM Blockchain, and data from The Weather Company.

Since Call for Code was launched in 2018, more than 400,000 developers and problem solvers across 179 nations have participated, creating more than 15,000 applications. This year’s competition focuses on three sub-themes related to combating climate change: water availability and consumption, food production and delivery, and economic production and consumption.

The winning team will receive $200,000 and support from the IBM Service Corps, technical experts, and partners—to develop their technology, make their code available for anyone to use in open-source, and deploy their solution on the ground in communities around the world.

For its role in the Call for Code Global Challenge, Esri has made its geospatial analytics software and resources available to each participant, including the following:

A free ArcGIS Platform developer account.
A $100 voucher applied to the participant’s ArcGIS account, allowing them to kick-start their solution with cloud hosting, analytical processing, and location services (This is available to the first 100 participants.)
Access to dedicated community support where participants can connect with mentors that can help them accelerate app development.

“Esri has just released a location platform as a service product that makes it easy for software developers to access geospatial technology,” said David Cardella, Product Manager—Developer Technologies, Esri. “Some of the most exciting ways users are putting our software to work is in creating apps that help meet challenges related to climate change. We are excited to introduce our flexible, scalable location services that make content and capabilities available to developers who are building the next generation of geospatial solutions.”

“We are excited to work with Esri and our global ecosystem throughout the 2021 Call for Code Global Challenge to drive, incubate, and deploy solutions that will combat climate change,” said Willie M. Tejada, IBM Chief Developer Advocate and General Manager ISV/Build Ecosystem. “Climate change is a monumental challenge and demands the participation of world-renowned humanitarian experts, business leaders, and technology partners like Esri to have an immediate and lasting effect.”

What makes Call for Code unique is the impact it is making on the ground through deployments in communities around the world. Last year’s winning solution, Agrolly, was designed to support small farmers by providing climate and crop predictions and recommendations. The agriculture industry is one of the most vulnerable to climate change due to its dependence on rainfall and temperature. Since October, the Agrolly team has expanded the solution to new markets and provided hands-on training to more than 500 rural farmers in Mongolia, India, and Brazil, who are testing and using the app to fight the effects of climate change.

About Esri

Esri, a global market leader in geographic information system (GIS) software, location intelligence, and mapping, helps customers unlock the full potential of data to improve operational and business results. Founded in 1969 in Redlands, California, USA, Esri software is deployed in more than 350,000 organizations globally and in over 200,000 institutions in the Americas, Asia and the Pacific, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, including Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, nonprofits, and universities. Esri has regional offices, international distributors, and partners providing local support in over 100 countries on six continents. With its pioneering commitment to geospatial information technology, Esri engineers the most innovative solutions for digital transformation, the Internet of Things (IoT), and advanced analytics. Visit us at esri.com .

About Call for Code Global Challenge

Developers have revolutionized the way people live and interact with virtually everyone and everything. Where most people see challenges, developers see possibilities. That’s why David Clark, the CEO of David Clark Cause, created Call for Code in 2018, and launched it alongside Founding Partner IBM and Charitable Partner UN Human rights. Since then, Call for Code has scaled to include an annual University Challenge in addition to regional prizes and the creation of Call for Code for Racial Justice.

This multi-year global initiative is a rallying cry to developers to use their mastery of the latest technologies to drive positive and long-lasting change across the world through code. Call for Code Global Challenge winning solutions are further developed, incubated, and deployed as sustainable open source projects to ensure they can drive positive change. To learn more about past winners and their progress, visit IBM Developer.

IBM Launches Fourth Annual Call for Code Global Challenge to Tackle Existential Threat of Climate Change

Tue, 23 Mar 2021 21:00:00 GMT

ARMONK, N.Y., March 22, 2021 — Together with Call for Code Creator David Clark Cause, Charitable Partner United Nations Human Rights, and the Linux Foundation, IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced the launch of the 2021 Call for Code Global Challenge. This year’s competition invites the world’s software developers and innovators to combat climate change with open source-powered technology.

Now in its fourth year, the Call for Code Initiative has grown to more than 400,000 developers and problem solvers across 179 nations, and has generated more than fifteen thousand applications. Call for Code aims to drive immediate and lasting humanitarian progress around the world through the creation of practical applications built on open source-powered software, including Red Hat OpenShift, IBM Cloud, IBM Watson, IBM Blockchain, atmospheric data from IBM’s Weather Company, and developer resources and APIs from partners like Intuit and New Relic.

The diverse and like-minded global ecosystem of experts, companies, foundations, universities, and celebrities supporting Call for Code continues to expand. It includes UN World Food Programme Innovation Accelerator experts, Arrow Electronics, Black Girls Code, Caribbean Girls Hack, Clinton Foundation, Clinton Global Initiative University, Ingram Micro, Intuit, Kode With Klossy, NearForm, United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, United Way, and World Institute on Disability.

To help take on climate change, IBM is announcing new partnerships this year with Heifer International and charity: water. Heifer International joins the Call for Code movement, contributing their world-renowned expertise in mitigating hunger and poverty by investing in local farmers and their communities.

“Smallholder farmers produce the majority of the world’s food and are on the frontlines of the climate crisis. With access to information and technology, they can make informed decisions on what to grow and when, enabling them to increase their incomes, while feeding the world,” said David Gill, Senior Director of Technology Innovation for Heifer International. “We’re excited to join IBM and the developer and open source communities in supporting these solutions that have the potential to increase access to water, food, and markets for millions of people around the world.”

IBM’s multi-pronged advocacy for environmental sustainability dates back decades. Earlier this year, IBM announced it will achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 by prioritizing reductions in its emissions, energy efficiency efforts, and increased clean energy use across the more than 175 countries where it operates. More recently, IBM Research announced progress in accelerating the discovery of new carbon capture, separation, and storage technologies.

“Climate change is one of the most pressing issues of our time, and we must apply our collective ingenuity and cutting-edge technologies to make a lasting difference,” said Ruth Davis, director of Call for Code, IBM. “Together with our ecosystem of partners, IBM will work with the winning team to incubate and deploy their solution in communities where it’s most needed, just as we’ve done with past winners. I encourage every developer and innovator around the world to seize this opportunity through Call for Code to change our climate trajectory.”

Last year’s winning solution, Agrolly, is an app designed to support small farmers by providing climate and crop predictions and recommendations. Since October, the Agrolly team has expanded their solution to new markets and provided hands-on training to more than 500 rural farmers across Mongolia, India, and Brazil, who are testing and using the app to fight the effects of climate change. Agrolly is also working with the IBM Service Corps on a deployment plan to improve and test their technology in the coming months.

Call for Code has generated more than 30 solutions that are being incubated and field tested in a series of deployments, including 12 open source projects hosted by the Linux Foundation, enabling these projects to evolve through the power of the open source community. As the latest example, today on UN World Water Day, the Linux Foundation announced that another Call for Code solution, Liquid Prep, will be hosted at the Foundation so developers worldwide can contribute their mobile, IoT, Edge, cloud, and weather skills to help farmers optimize water usage during droughts.

“The winning team from each Call for Code Global Challenge receives $200,000, and support from the IBM Service Corps, technical experts, and ecosystem partners to incubate their technology, open source their code to make it available for anyone to use, and deploy their solution on the ground in communities around the world,” said David Clark, CEO of David Clark Cause, and Creator of Call for Code. “This year the competition focuses on three sub-themes that are key to combatting climate change: clean water and sanitation; zero hunger; and responsible production and green consumption.”

IBM fights climate change with ‘Call for Code’ global challenge

Tue, 23 Mar 2021 20:58:00 GMT

Watch Good Morning American Video Here: https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/living/video/ibm-fights-climate-change-call-code-global-challenge-76601117

The tech company and “GMA” sponsor is creating a better world by using big ideas and breakthrough technology to improve lives. Learn more at www.callforcode.org

IBM Launches 2021 Call For Code Global Challenge

Tue, 23 Mar 2021 20:52:00 GMT

BULAWAYO, ZIMBABWE - MARCH 4: A woman pumps water from a communal borehole on March 4, 2021 in the Pumula South suburb of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Pumula South was one of the suburbs worst affected by the city council's 2019 water-shedding exercise, with some residents having had no access to piped water for the past 13 months. (Photo by KB Mpofu/Getty Images)

The 2021 Call for Code Global Challenge, an initiative to combat climate change with open-source-powered technology, is officially underway.

The competition was announced Monday morning by IBM, along with Call for Code Creator David Clark Cause, Charitable Partner United Nations Human Rights and the Linux Foundation.

IBM is the parent company of weather.com and The Weather Company.

In its fourth year, the contest has generated more than 15,000 applications from 400,000 developers across 179 nations.

“Climate change is one of the most pressing issues of our time, and we must apply our collective ingenuity and cutting-edge technologies to make a lasting difference,” Ruth Davis, director of Call for Code for IBM, said in a news release.

"I encourage every developer and innovator around the world to seize this opportunity through Call for Code to change our climate trajectory.”

IBM works with winning teams to incubate and deploy their solutions in the real world, Davis said. The winning team also receives $200,000.

The launch coincided with the United Nations' World Water Day, which aims to bring attention to water problems around the world, including lack of clean drinking water and other sanitation issues.

Some 2.2 billion people worldwide don't have access to safely managed water supplies, according to the World Health Organization.

Clean water and sanitation is one of three specific focus areas in this year's Call for Code competition. The other two are hunger, along with responsible production and green consumption.

Clark said those three themes are key to combating climate change.

Last year's winner, an agricultural app named Agrolly, supports small farmers by providing weather forecasts, climate trends and other data to help better inform their decisions and defend their businesses against climate change. Agrolly has so far been tested by more than 500 rural farmers across Mongolia, India and Brazil and is now moving on to its next phase of development.

Agrolly's founders are a team of four people, each from a different country and each with different backgrounds. In a recent interview with weather.com, the team encouraged anyone with an interest in solving a problem to join Call for Code.

"Yesterday it was four of us dreaming and today we are doing something really meaningful at a global level," said Chimegsaikhan (Chimka) Munkhbayar, head of sales and marketing in Asia for Agrolly.

Visit IBM Developer to learn more about Call for Code.

Kenya's Mbali Health wins $5000 IBM and David Clark Cause’s Call for Code Challenge

Mon, 21 Dec 2020 12:28:14 GMT

Kenya's Mbali Health are the winners of IBM and David Clark Cause’s 2020 Call for Code Global Challenge. The team emerged the Middle East and Africa regional winners for designing the Mbali Health application that connects patients to care providers in a socially distanced way.

Mbali Health team of developers will be awarded a total of $5000 which will go towards future development and deployment of the application. The team aims to include the transmission of voice and images. They will also receive support from IBM’s technical experts.

As the winner, Mbali Health also joins Call for Code’s ecosystem, which unites the world’s millions of developers and data scientists to unleash the power of cloud, AI, blockchain, and IoT technologies to solve pressing global problems with sustainable and scalable open source-powered technologies.

“We are honoured to have been part of the Call for Code challenge. During this pandemic, we saw the struggle that the patients and clinics were facing and sought to develop a solution. To emerge as the winners in this region is not only humbling but also pushes us to continue creating innovative solutions for the health sector; an area we are very passionate about.” Sam Wilks said, while speaking on behalf of Mbali Health.

With the COVID-19 pandemic actively spreading among citizens and with countries facing increased lockdown procedures, it was increasingly difficult for patients to gain access to medical care in a safe and socially distanced manner. Through the Call for Code Challenge, the developers of Mbali Health created a solution for Kenyans powered and secured by IBM Cloud Hyper Protect Virtual Servers and Hyper Protect DBaas with MongoDB, a simple chat interface that gives the patients easy access to healthcare providers through WhatsApp. With over 90% mobile penetration, the easy to use application is effortlessly accessible to a large population of Kenyans allowing for them to interact and receive diagnosis from physicians from the comfort of their homes.

The 2020 Call for Code challenge brought together developers, startups, and enterprise developers to create solutions to address the world’s current COVID-19 pandemic in addition to climate change; two pressing issues that have the power to compromise our health, our planet, and our survival.

Now in its third year, the Call for Code global competition has generated more than fifteen thousand solutions built using a combination of open source-powered products and technologies, including Red Hat OpenShift, IBM Cloud, IBM Watson, IBM Blockchain, data from The Weather Company, and APIs from ecosystem partners like HERE Technologies and IntelePeer.

Since its launch in 2018, this movement has grown to more than 400,000 developers and problem solvers across 179 nations, reflecting the reality that challenges like climate change and COVID-19 demand solutions that work on the local level, but also have the ability to scale and help any community, anywhere.

“At IBM, we do our best to apply data, knowledge, computing power, and insights to solve difficult problems. The regional winners, Mbali Health, have embodied the Call for Code Challenge to have developers ambitiously tackle the pressing issues we are currently facing during this pandemic using the power of Cloud, Digital, AI, blockchain, and IoT,” said Caroline Mukiira Country General Manager – East Africa.

In addition to the winning team, the Call for Code Challenge had regional finalists from other African countries such as Uganda, Tanzania, and Nigeria tackling education, health, and climate change.

Call for Code Wins Shorty Social Good Award w/Lady Gaga Campaign

Thu, 19 Nov 2020 12:42:32 GMT

OBJECTIVES

IBM has a long history of taking on the world’s biggest challenges because we believe it’s our job not only to innovate but to innovate responsibly. That history is the prime reason David Clark Cause approached IBM to be the Founding Partner of Call for Code, the largest and most ambitious effort to unite and mobilize developers to take on society's most pressing issues. The Call for Code Global Challenge invites the world’s developers to create practical and effective open-source applications based on IBM technology for potential deployment around the globe.

Today, the focus of these efforts includes protecting our environment, responding to growing climate change issues and the recent global pandemic that is COVID-19. And because those challenges are experienced differently by different communities, it means crafting solutions that work on local levels that can scale through open source and help communities everywhere.

Our research found that 79 percent of first responders and developers agree most people want to do something to help combat climate change but don't know where to start.

IBM works with a robust partner ecosystem, including The Linux Foundation, and the winning teams to not merely create innovative ideas, but to develop, field-test, and deploy these solutions in communities that need them most. Through Call for Code, we aim to harness technology and put open source solutions - free for all to use, build upon, and customize - into the hands of those who can create change in communities around the world.

STRATEGY AND EXECUTION

We know there are millions of developers ready and waiting to answer the call to solve today’s most pressing challenges with the experience, tools, and resources needed to create innovative solutions. They just need to be activated.

While we originally focused the 2020 competition on addressing climate change, we quickly recognized the opportunity to tap into the ingenuity and passion of the developer community to respond to COVID-19. We therefore created an additional COVID-19 Call for Code track with an accelerated timeline for the deployment of initial promising solutions.

Nearly two months after announcing the expansion of Call for Code to include COVID-19, Bob Lord and Chelsea Clinton announced three early Call for Code solutions to help in the fight against COVID-19: from reducing the strain on medical systems to supporting small businesses and helping us all run errands in a safer way. IBM and our partners are actively working with each of these three teams to develop prototypes and deploy their ideas.

Along with the original 2020 challenge and the expansion to include COVID-19, IBM, and the Clinton Global Initiative University also launched a new, dedicated University Edition within the Call for Code Global Challenge for college students to apply their learnings from the classroom to use their ingenuity to contribute to the COVID-19 response efforts.

At their core, all developers are problem solvers. We want them to discover and try IBM’s technology, and understand how the same tools they use for business can create a positive impact in society.

To help mobilize and grow this movement, while keeping the challenge focused on solving urgent global needs, we designed an integrated marketing and communications campaign to engage our core developer target audience and drive participation. To complement our earned media and event and hackathon strategies, we worked with David Clark Cause to mobilize support from leading celebrities, artists, and athletes and more to amplify our call-to-action over social media.

To create a groundswell and cut through today’s noisy social media conversations, we selected a single day to activate and orchestrate having these celebrities engage their Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram followers to promote this cause.

We ended up securing over 100 participants – including Lady Gaga, Pitbull, and Gigi Hadid – to rally their social media followers on May 27 to join Call for Code and encourage developers to answer the call.

RESULTS

Call for Code is based around the central idea that technology should not be a barrier keeping people from making a positive impact in their communities, but rather that it should serve as the catalyst that allows them to do so.

Since 2018, this tech for good community has grown to more than 400,000 developers across 179 nations who have answered the call. In the first three years of Call for Code, developers created 15,000 applications focused on natural disaster preparedness and relief and climate change. In March 2020, Call for Code expanded to address the world’s reaction to COVID-19 in addition to climate change.

To help drive submissions for the 2020 global challenge, and ensure the deployment solutions when they were most needed, our judges selected three early COVID-19 submissions, which were announced on May 5, and drove targeted media outreach resulting in 158 articles with an estimated reach of 20.6 million.

Safe Queue was one of these three solutions selected for accelerated deployment. Safe Queue is an app helping tackle those long lines we’ve all seen during COVID-19 at shopping centers, small businesses, and polling places. Safe Queue was created by a single developer in Los Angeles, after seeing Lady Gaga’s video about the global challenge on the local news.

In addition, we secured over 100 celebrities - including Lady Gaga, Pitbull, and Gigi Hadid - with David Clark Cause to rally their social media followers to join Call for Code, reaching over 945 million followers.

Call for Code Tackles Racial Injustice

Wed, 21 Oct 2020 12:28:00 GMT

When IBM and the organizers of the Call for Code Global Challenge announced the grand prize winner last week of its third annual international tech-for-good competition, they also unveiled a new Call for Code initiative: Call for Code for Racial Justice, which IBM is describing as "a vital initiative that brings together technology and a powerful ecosystem to combat one of the greatest challenges of our time: racial injustice."

Just as the original Call for Code Challenge urged developers around the world to use their skills to address climate change, and then both climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic, the Call for Code for Racial Justice expands the admonition further, calling on the international community of hundreds of thousands of developers to contribute to solutions to confront racial inequalities.

Call for Code for Racial Justice encourages the adoption and innovation of open source projects to drive progress in three key areas: Police and Judicial Reform and Accountability; Diverse Representation; and Policy and Legislation Reform.

The new initiative emerged from an internal IBM program called the Call for Code Emb(race) Challenge. It was started by Black IBMers who, along with Red Hatters and IBM allies, applied their ingenuity and expertise to design and develop technology solutions to address the problem of systemic racism. These solutions are now being opened up to the world as open source projects through the Call for Code tech-for-good platform.

The organizers are partnering with a number of organizations, including: Black Girls Code, Collab Capital, Dream Corps, The United Way Worldwide, American Airlines, Cloud Native Computing Foundation, and Red Hat.

"Black Girls Code was created to introduce programming and technology to a new generation of coders," said Anesha Grant, director of alumnae and educational programs at Black Girls Code, in a statement, "and we believe that a new generation of coders will shape our futures. We're excited to participate in Call for Code for Racial Justice and to spark meaningful change."

The Call for Code for Racial Justice launched officially this week at the virtual All Things Open.

The IBM Call for Code for Racial Justice team kicked off the competition by contributing "solution starters" to the open source community. These projects were built using technologies such as Red Hat OpenShift, IBM Cloud, IBM Watson, Blockchain ledger, Node.js, Vu.js, Docker, Kubernetes and Tekton, said Evaristus Mainsah, General Manager, IBM Hybrid Cloud and Edge Ecosystem and co-chair of IBM's Black Executive Council, and Willie Tejada, General Manager, IBM Developer Ecosystems Group and Chief Developer Advocate, in a joint blog post.

"We're asking developers and ecosystem partners to join us in combatting racial injustice by testing, extending and implementing these open source solutions, and contributing their own diverse perspectives and expertise to make them even stronger," they said.

The list of solution starters includes:

Five Fifths Voter: This web application empowers Black people and other minorities to ensure their voices are heard by exercising their right to vote. It is a virtual one-stop-shop to help determine optimal voting strategies for each individual and limit the impact of previous suppression issues.

Legit-info: Local legislation and policies can have significant impact on areas as far-reaching as jobs, the environment and safety. Legit-info helps individuals understand in their own language the legislation that shapes their lives.

Incident Accuracy Reporting System : This platform for police incident reporting allows witnesses and victims to corroborate evidence from multiple sources and assess against an official police report. The system creates a more reliable record of all accounts of the incident.

Open Sentencing: To help public defenders better serve their clients, Open Sentencing identifies racial bias in data such as demographics that can help make a stronger case.

Truth Loop: This app helps communities simply understand the policies, regulations and legislation that will impact them the most.

"Each year I'm amazed by how this global community of developers comes together to help solve some of the world's most pressing issues, and this year is no different," said Call for Code creator David Clark, in a statement. "Through the support of UN Human Rights, IBM, The Linux Foundation, the Call for Code ecosystem, world leaders, tech icons, celebrities, and the amazing developers that drive innovation, Call for Code has become the defining tech for good platform the world turns to for results."

When a hurricane blows out your internet, a drone can drop an instant network

Tue, 20 Oct 2020 22:18:00 GMT

New technology like instant Wi-Fi networks and body monitoring sensors are helping first responders in the field save lives.

The deadliest hurricane in Puerto Rican history began as a cluster of thunderstorms off the western bulge of Africa on Sept. 13, 2017. Fueled by evaporation from warm tropical water just north of the equator, the storms began to form into circular bands and rotate around the area of low pressure moving west across the Atlantic Ocean. Three days later as the winds in those bands reached 75 mph, Hurricane Maria was officially born.

After pummeling the Lesser Antilles, Maria approached Puerto Rico on Sept. 20 as a powerful Category 4 storm. Traversing the island, the storm created devastation with violent winds (speed records were unreliable after land-based wind sensors were destroyed) and torrential flooding (almost 40 inches of rain fell on the mountain town of Caguas). Maria caused $90 billion in damage and, according to a George Washington University study commissioned by the commonwealth's governor, left 2,975 people dead.

But Maria did more than destroy roads, bridges and entire towns -- it took down the island's power grid and knocked out most of the wireless networks and internet cables. In the weeks after the storm, those communications gaps severely hampered relief efforts. Without the ability to contact injured people, first responders can't help them. And when emergency crews are working in dangerous environments, such as paramedics after a hurricane or firefighters battling some of the largest wildfires in California history, their commanders need to be able to monitor their health so they can keep saving lives. Fortunately, tech developers are stepping in to help, with new technologies like mesh networks that can be quickly deployed in ruined areas and wearable equipment that monitors the health of firefighters in real time.

"In the worst disasters, chaos and misinformation are pervasive," says Bryan Knouse, the CEO of Project Owl, a Brooklyn-based startup that's developed just such a mesh network. "With better information and better analytics, you can get the resources you need to the places that need it most."

Hurricane Maria destroyed Puerto Rico's electrical and communication networks, leaving rescuers unable to contact residents in ruined areas.

In 2018, Project Owl (Owl stands for "organization, whereabouts and logistics") was the winner of IBM's first Call for Code Global Challenge , which asked developers to build systems for improving preparedness for natural disasters and relief efforts. Project Owl started testing its network on the island in March 2019. As the coronavirus pandemic rages on, Knouse says the need for reliable communication is more important than ever. "This year in general has been an exceptional year of adversity," he says. "[ COVID-19 ] is very different in nature from a hurricane, but a community needs the same things after a disaster, whether it's a hurricane, an earthquake, a flood, a wildfire or a global pandemic."

"People think, 'Oh it's just the internet or whatever.' No ... a lack of communication kills people." - Darrick Kouns, ITDRC

"People think, 'Oh it's just the internet or whatever,'" he says. "No ... a lack of communication kills people." IBM kept the same theme for the 2019 Call for Code Challenge, awarding that year's $200,000 top prize to a startup called Prometeo . A team of Barcelona developers wanted to make a device that uses the internet of things and machine learning to tell firefighters when they're being exposed to life-threatening amounts of chemicals. The danger is only increasing as deadly wildfires , like the gigafire currently ravaging the US West Coast , become more common due to climate change.

Prometeo co-founder Salomé Valero says these blazes are considered the "sixth or seventh generation" -- wildfires grow more intense and spread increasingly quickly with each generation -- so they're nearly impossible to control. California's blaze has been called a gigafire because it's burned at least a million acres. "The speed of the fire is too much -- the firefighters' extinguishing capacity isn't enough to stop it," Valero says. "They try to put limits on the boundaries of the fire -- it's the only thing they can do. So that means the current wildfires are burning for days; the toxic substances and their effects are not only dangerous for firefighters. Society is breathing this air."

Sitting ducks

Yazet Sepulveda was lucky during Hurricane Maria. Now a student at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez, he and his family didn't suffer major injuries. But he still experienced the crippling effects of the communications blackout.

"There was no way of contacting your loved ones for around the first few weeks to the first month," he remembers. "And with the streets blocked because of all of the debris, you couldn't just go and see your family members, even if they were a couple of miles away.

"People have thought about better communication systems forever ... but you never actually think of the exact solutions until somebody comes up with them."

Today, Sepulveda sees Project Owl as one of those solutions. Since October, he's led a group of Mayagüez students who've deployed Project Owl's equipment around the campus while continuing to test the gear and support it with further development. He says the technology could be a huge asset next time disaster hits the island, a timely concern in the second most active Atlantic hurricane season ever. Puerto Rico's location on the border of the North American and Caribbean tectonic plates also makes it vulnerable to earthquakes.

"There are people living in the rural areas, and as soon as something happens to them -- they have an injured person, they're lacking food or they're lacking water -- they can immediately notify [first responders] through this mesh network." he says. "The first responders will immediately know where and what is going on."

For what it promises, Project Owl's tech works in a simple way. It consists of both hardware -- wireless devices called DuckLinks -- and the open-source management software used by the hardware. Working together, they let anyone, from an injured family in a ruined house to the rescuer trying to reach them, go online and talk to each other. They also can pinpoint a person's location through GPS. It's all helpful information when you realize that a fleet of the best ambulances is useless if you don't know where to send them.

Hurricane Maria destroyed Puerto Rico's electrical and communication networks, leaving rescuers unable to contact residents in ruined areas.Carolyn Cole/Getty Images
In 2018, Project Owl (Owl stands for "organization, whereabouts and logistics") was the winner of IBM's first Call for Code Global Challenge , which asked developers to build systems for improving preparedness for natural disasters and relief efforts. Project Owl started testing its network on the island in March 2019. As the coronavirus pandemic rages on, Knouse says the need for reliable communication is more important than ever."This year in general has been an exceptional year of adversity," he says. "[ COVID-19 ] is very different in nature from a hurricane, but a community needs the same things after a disaster, whether it's a hurricane, an earthquake, a flood, a wildfire or a global pandemic."

"People think, 'Oh it's just the internet or whatever.' No ... a lack of communication kills people." - Darrick Kouns, ITDRC

Darrick Kouns, the chief of operations and commonwealth coordinator with the Information Technology Disaster Resource Center , has been testing Project Owl's tech in Puerto Rico since last year. The Dallas-based disaster relief nonprofit sent a team to the island a week after Maria hit to provide tech-related assistance during the recovery effort. Kouns knows that saving lives depends on remaining online. "People think, 'Oh it's just the internet or whatever,'" he says. "No ... a lack of communication kills people." IBM kept the same theme for the 2019 Call for Code Challenge, awarding that year's $200,000 top prize to a startup called Prometeo . A team of Barcelona developers wanted to make a device that uses the internet of things and machine learning to tell firefighters when they're being exposed to life-threatening amounts of chemicals.

The danger is only increasing as deadly wildfires , like the gigafire currently ravaging the US West Coast , become more common due to climate change.

Prometeo co-founder Salomé Valero says these blazes are considered the "sixth or seventh generation" -- wildfires grow more intense and spread increasingly quickly with each generation -- so they're nearly impossible to control. California's blaze has been called a gigafire because it's burned at least a million acres."The speed of the fire is too much -- the firefighters' extinguishing capacity isn't enough to stop it," Valero says. "They try to put limits on the boundaries of the fire -- it's the only thing they can do. So that means the current wildfires are burning for days; the toxic substances and their effects are not only dangerous for firefighters. Society is breathing this air."

A member of Project Owl's test crew in Puerto Rico attaches a solar-powered DuckLink to a rooftop pole.Project Owl

One of the most basic DuckLink designs looks like a walkie-talkie

Project Owl

"We can't stop a hurricane," Knouse says. "But what we can do is provide communities the organizational and communications capacity they need to respond to them as effectively as they can."

The process for going online starts with the DuckLink devices, which use a long-range radio to connect to one another, in what Project Owl calls a ClusterDuck network. Together they form a wireless "mesh" that gives the mesh network its name. Devices called MamaDucks then act as a hub for the network, connecting to the PapaDucks internet gateways that forward the data traffic to the Linux-based OWL Data Management System through a cellular, Wi-Fi or satellite connection.

DuckLinks can take almost any shape or form and can run off batteries or solar power. As long as you have a circuit board and upload the firmware, you can make any enclosure you want for as little as $30. When CNET met with Knouse in late January, before the coronavirus changed the world, he showed us a few DuckLink designs, some of which Project Owl makes.

One of the DuckLink devices is designed to float in flooded areas. Project OwlHurricane Maria destroyed Puerto Rico's electrical and communication networks, leaving rescuers unable to contact residents in ruined areas.

A common example that's now being tested in Puerto Rico is just a small clear plastic shell with an antenna sticking out of the top. It looks a bit like a walkie-talkie, and it's small enough to carry in a pocket. Other designs are made to be attached to walls, utility poles or trees. There's even one that floats in water and is self-righting. Though there isn't a DuckLink that resembles an actual duck, you could make one if you wanted to.

Sepulveda says DuckLinks' flexible designs and ability to run off solar power are huge assets. Developers could adapt DuckLinks to any environment and not have to worry about keeping a battery charged. "It's not reliant on any external power grid, it's completely self-sufficient. And one of the most beautiful things about open source is that anyone can buy a duck and set it up."

Ducks in a row

Deployment of the DuckLinks (either before or after a disaster) starts with Project Owl and local officials deciding where the mesh networks are needed, based on where people live and where the communication gaps exist. Then they'll decide on the best locations to drop the devices, taking into account the local geography. Exactly how many DuckLinks are needed depends on the situation, as their signals can range from a few hundred meters to a kilometer.

As with any other device that uses radio, the DuckLink's signals can be blocked by mountains, dense foliage, concrete or metal walls. It's not that different from finding the best place for a Wi-Fi router in your house -- reception drops as you move into other rooms or if you go outside. Even air pressure and high humidity can slow down the network.

In inaccessible areas, DuckLinks can be dropped by a drone.

Project Ow l
"It's a very frustrating, hard-learned lesson that's heavily influenced by the terrain you're going into," Knouse says. "Height is might in radio communications. So [putting ducks] on trees or plastic poles is good, and generally staying away from metal is good. But understanding that if you're in a rainforest, radio communication does not propagate the way it does across a cold, crisp field." Though Kouns of the ITDRC acknowledges that the island's mountainous and thickly forested terrain make it hard to build a strong mesh network, it's also an ideal place to test Project Owl's real potential. In any case, the technology isn't designed to replace a cell network forever.

A demonstration of how the ClusterDuck network operates.

Project Owl
"You have very urban areas to coastal areas to pretty rugged mountains," he says. "But [Project Owl] isn't building a device that solves everything. ... It's to get the community through a time until a more permanent solution can be put in place."If an individual DuckLink does go offline -- maybe it loses power or is crushed by a falling tree -- the system is designed to be self-healing, with other DuckLinks taking over. That's one feature Kouns finds especially appealing.

"If crap will go wrong, it absolutely will during an emergency." - Darrick Kouns, ITDRC
"With any mesh network like that, you get one of them in your sequence too far off and it essentially breaks the chain." he says. "If crap will go wrong, it absolutely will during an emergency."

The actual deployment process can happen by hand, from a car or even via drone in a flooded or hard-to-reach area. But once the network is deployed and activated, people need only to find it on their phone to start a connection. Search for a Wi-Fi network and you'll see one called "Duck Emergency Portal" with an "SOS" emoji. Select it and a portal pops up; then you can send messages and communicate -- you don't need to enter login credentials or download an app. Kouns says he appreciates how the system is easy to use, regardless of a person's education or technical know-how.

This DuckLink can be attached to a tree.

Project Owl
"When you have equipment that's going to be used during a disaster, you have to keep it fairly simple," he says. "Not just because there might be people without the same education as you or the same technical background as you, but it needs to be very simple to operate under stress."

Ruth Silva, ITDRC's assistant operations chief in Puerto Rico, says that after asking a group of children aged 7 to 9 to use the DuckLinks, she realized emojis are one way to overcome language and literacy barriers. So, for example, when answering a question like 'What do you need?" a person could use a droplet emoji to ask for water or a red cross to request medical attention.

"[The children] know how to use Wi-Fi. They got to the portal and it was easy enough for them to just click on questions," Silva says. "But one of the things we got from them was that we needed to use more emojis, not not only to talk to the kids, but also because some words may be difficult maybe for an older person."

Fighting fire with tech

First responders fighting wildfires face unique challenges, and startup Prometeo is trying to keep them healthy while they battle a blaze. The company (named after Prometheus, the mythological Titan who stole fire from the gods and gifted it to humanity) makes a lightweight device -- about the size of an iPhone -- that straps to a firefighter's arm and uses electrochemical sensors to measure carbon monoxide, temperature, humidity and smoke concentration.

Together, those elements can cause headaches and other short-term discomfort. But by monitoring the chemicals that firefighters are being exposed to in real time and warning them when those chemicals reach dangerous levels, Prometeo's goal is to alleviate more dangerous long-term effects, such as cancer and other illnesses, like those suffered by 9/11 first responders who worked on the World Trade Center site.

Prometeo's body-monitoring technology would keep tabs on firefighters, like this crew on the front lines of California's Glass Fire earlier this month.Philip Pacheco/Getty Images
Juan Herrera, one of the Prometeo team's firefighters , has 33 years of experience, 14 of which he's spent with the department tasked with battling wildfires in Cerdanyola del Vallès, an area near Barcelona."We worked side by side," he says. "Fellow firefighters that have died in my hands, in my arms."

He and EMS nurse Vicenç Padró conducted on-the-job research into the toxic chemicals by manually checking firefighters' health data, but they found they lacked the resources and technical knowledge to develop any long-term strategies. It was enough to make them deeply concerned. So they joined IT professionals Salomé Valero, Josep Ràfols and Marco Rodriguez in developing a technical solution, also called Prometeo.

A firefighter fastens Prometeo's device to a colleague's arm.

Prometeo
"Juan made a profound impression on us," Valero says. "He has suffered a lot during his career."The device is designed to work with multiple IBM Cloud services -- data on the chemicals a firefighter is inhaling gets transmitted to the IBM Cloud IoT platform . From there, it's sent to the IBM Watson-based machine learning model that cross-checks it against the firefighter's historical health data. Ultimately, that creates a color-coded output on the Prometeo dashboard at an on-site command center.

Prometeo's device uses sensors to measure carbon monoxide, temperature, humidity and smoke concentration.

Prometeo

If the firefighter's status shows green, things are OK. But a yellow or red signal means there's danger of long-term health damage, so the firefighter needs to get away fast. "We're going to have real data from firefighters, and after a few years with enough data, we are going to have scientific evidence of the consequences of these toxic substances," Valero says. "And that is not only important for firefighters, it's a lso important for civilians. We have cases, like

Australia and Manchester (England), wh ere wildfires are burning for days, even months."

Into the field

The Prometeo team kicked off field testing in February, seeing how well the device worked for 10 firefighters as they battled a controlled wildfire burn outside Barcelona. Joan Esteve Bonmatí was part of that group, and the test highlighted the subtle, potentially deadly impact of toxic chemicals on his health. "Before the closing briefing, I could see all my day's data," he says. "Even when my sensor said I was getting intoxicated, I felt OK and could do my job normally, without any symptoms or feeling ill."

Through a dashboard, commanders can monitor a firefighter's health and safety.

Prometeo

The team planned to start testing with fire departments in March, but the coronavirus lockdown kicked in before that could happen.

Herrera and the team's other firefighters were drafted to help disinfect local hospitals, so the developers worked on improving the device -- their goal was to add more sensors to scan for additional chemicals like nitrogen dioxide, along with making sure firefighters' health data remained secure."We want to ensure the security in every fire station, so they'll only see their data," Valero says. "With the data in the cloud, I think it is important for them to have that security."

A future on hold

Though both Project Owl and Prometeo have plans to expand, travel restrictions and social distancing measures from the coronavirus pandemic have paused them. For now it's unclear when they'll be able to resume. When that happens, though, Prometeo hopes to roll out its field-testing to at least five locations, including Andalusia and Catalonia in Spain, plus Argentina, Australia and California, having been in contact with fire departments in each place. For the last two places in particular, the technology couldn't come at a more critical time. Massive wildfires burned Australia in January, and late summer brought four of the five largest blazes in California's history , some of which are still burning.

The Prometeo team hopes to field-test in Australia, which suffered through wildfires in early 2020.

The team wants to test multiple forms of connectivity -- Wi-Fi, Project Owl and LoRa wireless -- in remote areas that have poor internet and cellular coverage. The updated device also lets firefighters view their readings via a smartwatch in case their connection to the main system is cut off.

"So the next milestone is the field test in a global way, with a new version of the device," Valero says. "And if we are lucky, perhaps at the end of this year. We're optimistic."

"A community needs the same things after a disaster, whether it's a hurricane, an earthquake, a flood, a wildfire or a global pandemic." - Bryan Knouse, Project Owl

Knouse says Project Owl hopes to return to Puerto Rico once it's safe to travel, and he's exploring how the DuckLink could be used elsewhere. The company has demonstrated its technology in Texas, New York City and Philadelphia, and in Alabama for the Department of Homeland Security.

He's also pitched the idea to officials in San Rafael, California, for use when local utility PG&E uses Public Safety Power Shutoff programs to avoid sparking wildfires in dry, windy weather. Without power, residents can lose their home internet and even wireless service, robbing them of ways to get crucial information about a fire's progress, including evacuation warnings. County officials "had no way to communicate with their residents," Knouse says. "Residents weren't aware of what was going on, and they couldn't find resources or communicate with each other during that challenging time period."

Farming assistant app Agrolly wins 2020 Call for Code Global Challenge

Tue, 13 Oct 2020 18:55:00 GMT

The innovative platform will be a one-stop-shop for farmers seeking out more information on what to plant and when.

Agrolly, a platform built to help farmers in emerging markets, was chosen as the winner of IBM's 2020 Call for Code Global Challenge.

Agrolly provides farmers with a bevy of information about weather patterns and crop characteristics, giving them advice on what would be the best thing to plant during certain times of the year. The platform also has ways for farmers to connect with experts as well as ways for them to share information and tools with each other.

During the virtual "2020 Call for Code Awards: A Global Celebration of Tech for Good" event, Agrolly was announced as the winner of the annual competition, which brings together the world's brightest minds to create solutions to pertinent problems. This year's task was to develop solutions to problems related to climate change and COVID-19.

"Climate change is making it worse for farmers in developing countries and they are losing yield production because of the changes. When you come to emerging markets and you look at these farmers, they don't have the resources, they don't know what to plant, they don't know what the weather will be, and they don't have advantages," said Manoela Morais, CEO of Agrolly.The body content of your post goes here. To edit this text, click on it and delete this default text and start typing your own or paste your own from a different source.

"We want to change the farming industry in the long run by listening to these small farmers in emerging markets, giving them a voice, and empowering them with the latest tech available. We wanted to create an ecosystem where they can contact each other, solve their problems and build a system that is better in the long run for everyone."

A panel of judges gave Agrolly and its founders $200,000, tools to test and build out their platform, as well as support from IBM Service Corps and other technical experts. According to IBM, Agrolly will also get help from the Linux Foundation in making its platform open source, which will give developers around the world the chance to help improve it.

Since it began in 2018, the Call for Code competition has brought together hundreds of thousands of developers and creators to solve the world's biggest problems, and dozens of unique ideas have been put together through the yearly event. IBM said more than 400,000 developers across 179 nations have participated, taking advantage of IBM tools like Red Hat OpenShift, IBM Cloud, IBM Watson, IBM Blockchain, and data from the Weather Company.

There are already multiple studies showing that climate change is already having a drastic effect on the world's food supply and is leading to reduced crop yields among the top 10 global crops, namely barley, cassava, maize, oil palm, rapeseed, rice, sorghum, soybean, sugarcane, and wheat.

Agrolly itself uses many of these tools, particularly data from the Weather Company, which provides farmers with daily, weekly, and yearly forecasts so they know what crops to plant at which time of the year.

The Agrolly team is made up of researchers, coders, and developers from Brazil, India, Mongolia, and Taiwan who met at Pace University in New York City. Morais told TechRepublic in an interview that she and the team could only start work on the project once they had all finished their final exams.

Backed by IBM Cloud Object Storage, IBM Watson Studio, and IBM Watson Assistant, Agrolly was created in the hopes that it would provide struggling farmers with the kind of information they need to make better decisions and improve financially.

Ajinkya Datalkar, CTO of Agrolly, explained that the platform gives farmers information that is tailored to their specific location, the kind of crops they want to plant, and the season they want to grow it.

Datalkar said he was inspired to help build Agrolly because, in his home country of India, the suicide rate for farmers is becoming higher each year due to the financial crunch many face with a newly uneven climate.

The app, he said is currently split into four sections: The forum, the weather, the crop management, and the expert advice. Farmers can speak to one another in the forum, get detailed weather advice from NASA and the Weather Company, receive in-depth information about crops, and call on help from experts.

He also noted that the app works on a wide variety of devices.

"We kept this in mind while developing this. The farmers may use old cell phones and they may use iPhone 5s, so while developing the app we decided we would also be targeting devices that support Android 4.4, which is pretty much all Androids," Datalkar said.

The app is already available in the Google store and is in use in a number of countries.

IBM's chief technology officer for Call for Code, Daniel Krook, said the Agrolly team was chosen not just for their innovative idea but because of how they initially came up with it.

"What really stands out to me about this particular solution is that I like that from the ground up since May, they have been talking to their end-users. What they created was something based on those conversations in Mongolia and Brazil," Krook said.

"They didn't just conceive of a solution to an imaginary problem. I saw that they were deeply involved and worked very closely with their end-users and I think the ecosystem will grow no matter what happens. They really have a great road map, not only of where they've gotten to right now but also where they're thinking of going from a business point of view."

Agrolly was one of the five finalists chosen by the Call for Code judges. The other groups involved included OffShip, another potential solution to the effects of climate change, and three other platforms that revolved around efforts to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.

The second-place prize went to Business Buddy, which will receive $25,000 and the third-place prize went to Safe Queue, which is already being used by stores to create digital replacements for physical lines. SchoolListIt was awarded fourth place and $10,000.

"Through the support of UN Human Rights, IBM, the Linux Foundation, the Call for Code ecosystem, world leaders, tech icons, celebrities, and the amazing developers that drive innovation, Call for Code has become the defining tech for good platform the world turns to for results."

Call for Code Names Winner of 2020 Global Challenge and Announces New Initiative to Combat Racial Injustice

Tue, 13 Oct 2020 18:45:00 GMT

Agrolly selected for innovative solution to help small farmers as they struggle with effects of climate change New initiative enables global developers to leverage proven Call for Code platform to help combat systemic racism

ARMONK, N.Y., Oct. 13, 2020 -- Where most people see challenges, developers see possibilities. That's certainly been the case in 2020. Today, Call for Code founding partner IBM (NYSE: IBM) and its creator, David Clark Cause, announced the winner of the 2020 Call for Code Global Challenge. The top prize went to Agrolly, an application to help the world's small farmers cope with the environmental and business challenges of climate change.

Call for Code also introduced a new initiative—Call for Code for Racial Justice—to urge its international community of hundreds of thousands of developers to contribute to solutions to confront racial inequalities.

The announcements came during a virtual event, the "2020 Call for Code Awards: A Global Celebration of Tech for Good." A full replay can be watched here.

The 2020 Call for Code Global Challenge had asked developers to create solutions to help communities fight back against climate change and COVID-19. A panel of industry leaders and judges awarded Agrolly the grand prize while announcing four other winners—one that also created a response to climate change, and three others aimed at the global coronavirus pandemic.

Agrolly will receive $200,000, support from IBM Service Corps and technical experts, and ecosystem partners to incubate, test and deploy their solution. Agrolly will also receive assistance from The Linux Foundation to open-source their application so developers across the world can improve and scale the technology.

Call for Code unites hundreds of thousands of developers to create and deploy applications powered by open source technology that can tackle some of the world's biggest challenges. Since its launch in 2018, this movement has grown to more than 400,000 developers and problem solvers across 179 nations, and has generated more than fifteen thousand solutions using technology including Red Hat OpenShift, IBM Cloud, IBM Watson, IBM Blockchain, data from The Weather Company, and APIs from ecosystem partners like HERE Technologies and IntelePeer.

Top Solutions Tackling Effects of Climate Change and COVID-19

Agrolly was created by a distributed team of developers from Brazil, India, Mongolia and Taiwan who met at Pace University in New York City. Powered by IBM Cloud Object Storage, IBM Watson Studio, and IBM Watson Assistant, Agrolly aims to fill information gaps so farmers with limited resources can make more informed decisions, and obtain the necessary financing to help improve their economic outcomes.

By combining weather forecasts from The Weather Company and historical data from NASA with crop requirements published by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, Agrolly's platform provides tailored information for each farmer by location, crop type and even the plants' stage of development during the growing season. The Agrolly team, as part of their response to the Call for Code Challenge, has made the solution available as an app in the Google store, free of charge.

Another climate change solution, OffShip, received fifth place and was awarded $10,000.

Three COVID-19 solutions were also honored. Second place went to Business Buddy, which will receive $25,000. Safe Queue was given third place and $25,000; SchoolListIt was awarded fourth place and $10,000.

Safe Queue, an app that enables a safer way to manage entry during COVID-19 at shopping centers, small businesses, and polling places by replacing physical lines with on-demand virtual lines, had been recognized in early May as one of the top solutions in the Call for Code accelerated COVID-19 track. Since May, IBM specialists and partners have worked to further incubate, test, and deploy Safe Queue's solution with organizations across the country.

"All of the submissions in this year's global challenge clearly show the immense potential of technologies based on hybrid cloud, AI and open source to address critical issues like climate change, COVID-19 and more," said Bob Lord, Senior Vice President, Cognitive Applications and Ecosystems, IBM. "We know the developer community has the skills, desire and ingenuity to tackle the world's thorniest issues. What we're providing through Call for Code is a catalyst to galvanize that community to take on specific societal challenges, as well as the open source-powered products and technologies to bring their vision to reality. Through this powerful combination, brilliant ideas like Agrolly can be transformed into the scalable solutions the world needs today."

Winners in the University Category

Chelsea Clinton, Vice Chair, Clinton Foundation, announced the inaugural winner of the Call for Code University Edition, a collaboration between IBM and the Clinton Global Initiative University.

Pandemap, created by a team of students from UC Berkeley to monitor and manage crowd flow and promote social distancing during COVID-19 will receive $10,000. Lupe, created by university students in the United Kingdom, was named runner-up. Team members from Pandemap and Lupe also receive the opportunity to interview for a potential role at IBM.

"Now, more than ever, the scope and urgency of the issues we're encountering demand diverse perspectives and expertise and we're proud to partner with IBM for the second year to advance university efforts that are committed to doing just that," Clinton said. "Reaching over 53,000 students from more than 45 nations in 2020, we saw a tremendous and inspiring movement of young people, investing their time and talent during Call for Code. The passion, collaboration and innovation of our students is what will help unite and propel our society forward."

Advancing Racial Justice

The announcement of Call for Code for Racial Justice follows three years of successful global programs addressing natural disasters, climate change and COVID-19. Call for Code for Racial Justice encourages the adoption and innovation of open source projects to drive progress in three key areas of focus: Police & Judicial Reform and Accountability; Diverse Representation; and Policy & Legislation Reform.

Together with partners like Black Girls Code, Collab Capital, Dream Corps, The United Way Worldwide, American Airlines, Cloud Native Computing Foundation and Red Hat, Call for Code for Racial Justice is inviting developers to apply their skills and ingenuity to combat systemic racism.

The tragic deaths of George Floyd, Amaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and many others, serve as a reminder that silent carriers help spread racism, and the fight against it is as urgent as ever. The new initiative began with Black IBMers and allies taking action with an internal IBM program called the Call for Code Emb(race) Challenge. Solutions created and developed through that program are now being opened to the world to build upon through Call for Code for Racial Justice.

"Black Girls Code was created to introduce programming and technology to a new generation of coders, and we believe that a new generation of coders will shape our futures,'' said Anesha Grant, Director of Alumnae and Educational Programs, Black Girls Code. "We're excited to participate in Call for Code for Racial Justice and to spark meaningful change."

Call for Code for Racial Justice is planned for launch at the virtual All Things Open on October 19.

"Each year I'm amazed by how this global community of developers comes together to help solve some of the world's most pressing issues, and this year is no different," said Call for Code creator David Clark. "Through the support of UN Human Rights, IBM, The Linux Foundation, the Call for Code ecosystem, world leaders, tech icons, celebrities, and the amazing developers that drive innovation, Call for Code has become the defining tech for good platform the world turns to for results."

About Call for Code Global Challenge

This five-year, $30 million global initiative is a rallying cry to developers to use their mastery of the latest technologies to drive positive and long-lasting change across the world through code. The Call for Code community includes United Nations Human Rights, The Linux Foundation, United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, Clinton Foundation and Clinton Global Initiative University, Cloud Native Computing Foundation, Verizon, Persistent Systems, Arrow Electronics, HERE Technologies, Ingram Micro, IntelePeer, Consumer Technology Association Foundation, World Bank, Caribbean Girls Hack, Kode With Klossy, World Institute on Disability, and many more.

Call for Code global winning solutions are further developed, incubated, and deployed as sustainable open source projects to ensure they can drive positive change.

Media Contact:

Deirdre Leahy

(845) 863-4552

deirdre.leahy@ibm.com

'Call for Code' tech competition seeks solutions for climate change, COVID-19

Sat, 20 Jun 2020 13:44:00 GMT

Developers are asked to solve social problems in exchange for cash prizes.

Technology can serve any purpose, including the greater good. That inspired entrepreneur David Clark to start an annual competition, the Call for Code Global Challenge.

“The basic idea was to create this ‘Justice League’ for good,” he says, “where we would encourage developers around the world to solve social challenges with tech solutions and really create what would be akin to the Nobel Prize for developers.”

Co-founded with IBM and in partnership with the UN, the contest offers cash prizes and helps bring promising ideas to market. It issues a different challenge each year.

Last year’s competition focused on preparing for natural disasters, which are becoming more common as climate change causes more extreme weather.

“The innovations that came out of it quite frankly were amazing and are actually being deployed right now,” Clark says.

For example, the winning team was led by a firefighter who lost a friend to smoke inhalation. He created a wearable device that monitors air quality and firefighters’ vital signs.

This year, the Call for Code is seeking solutions for two of the world’s most pressing problems: COVID-19 and climate change.

So soon, the world may see other winning ideas moving to the front lines.

Reporting credit: Stephanie Manuzak/ChavoBart Digital Media.

Social voice Tops 945 Million as iconic celebrities in entertainment, sports, and fashion team up with United Nations Human Rights to ignite the ‘Cause Flash’ social media campaign

Thu, 28 May 2020 21:32:00 GMT

Barbra Streisand, Quincy Jones, Celine Dion, Ellen DeGeneres, Cher, Michael Bublé, Jeff Bridges, Jonas Brothers, Carole King, Rod Stewart, Gigi Hadid, Misty Copeland, Pitbull, Pierce Brosnan, Kristen Bell, more join United Nations Human Rights for the Call for Code awareness campaign to advocate for innovative tech solutions to help people during the Covid-19 pandemic and global climate change crisis

NEW YORK (May 28, 2020) – Barbra Streisand, Quincy Jones, Celine Dion, Ellen DeGeneres, Cher, Michael Bublé, Jeff Bridges, Jonas Brothers, Carole King, Rod Stewart, Gigi Hadid, Misty Copeland, Pitbull, Pierce Brosnan, Kristen Bell, and more are among the major celebrities joining United Nations Human Rights on May 27, 2020 to launch the Call for Code awareness campaign and advocate for new tech solutions to help people suffering from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and climate change.

Over fifty of the biggest names in entertainment, sports, and fashion are lending their voice to ignite the Call for Code ‘Cause Flash,’ a global social media campaign to encourage developers and innovators to make a difference and create solutions to help the world’s most vulnerable people. The celebrity coalition has a combined social media reach of over 1 billion followers. Participants also include Aloe Blacc, Andra Day, Austin Mahone, Bazzi, Cara Delevingne, Carlos Vives, Cyndi Lauper, Fall Out Boy, Fergie, Gloria Estefan, Jason Mraz, One Republic, Pentatonix, Rev Run, Ricky Martin, Ryan Tedder, Rob Thomas, Rita Wilson, Toby Keith, and Wiz Khalifa, as well as Olympic champions Lindsay Vonn and Laurie Hernandez, actors Nina Dobrev, Steve Buscemi, Tim Roth, and comedienne Margaret Cho, among many others.

Academy Award-winner Jeff Bridges, the first celebrity out the gate to speak out for Call for Code on his popular Twitter , Instagram , and Facebook accounts posted a poignant photo of a frontline health care worker with his message, "Let's fight back against #COVID19 & #ClimateChange. I encourage developers & innovators to make a difference. Join @CallforCode & its partner @UNHumanRights to help create solutions for the world's most vulnerable people. Visit: http://CallforCode.org #TechForGood."

Since Lady Gaga made a personal video appeal in March urging ‘tech rock stars’ to commit to the cause, hundreds of thousands of developers from 165 countries have already signed up for the 2020 Call for Code Global Challenge , which has become the largest tech for social good initiative in history.

The top tech innovations to be funded and deployed will be selected by a jury, which includes Former President Bill Clinton, Mark Cuban, American tech entrepreneur and co-host of ABC TV’s “Shark Tank,” Dr. Irwin Redlener, Director of National Center for Disaster Preparedness, Dr. Mickey Chopra, Global Solutions Lead for Service Delivery in the Health Nutrition and Population of the World Bank, Mami Mizutori, the UN’s Assistant Secretary-General and Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction, Brian A. Gallagher, President and CEO of United Way Worldwide, and David Miliband, President and CEO of International Rescue Committee.

United Nations Human Rights is Global Partner of Call for Code, a multi-year initiative created in 2018 by David Clark, CEO of David Clark Cause, with Founding Partner IBM, and Affiliate Partner The Linux Foundation. In addition to IBM’s initial 5-year $30 million pledge of support Call for Code, and additional $25 million pledged to help deploy the top tech solutions, Call for Code is supported by major corporations including Verizon, Arrow Electronics and Persistent Systems.

“We are so grateful for the generous support from these renowned celebrities, our jury, partner organizations, and sponsors, and sincerely thank Lady Gaga for inspiring developers and innovators to answer the call,” said David Clark. “Call for Code would not be possible without United Nation Human Rights, which has helped guide our effort while they continue to work with the 193 member states to address the unfolding human rights crisis posed by Covid-19 and climate change. I also want to extend our utmost gratitude to IBM CEO Arvind Krishna, and the entire IBM family for their unparalleled leadership in galvanizing the global tech community. As the most trusted technology partner there is, we’re grateful IBM answered the call to be the Founding Partner of Call for Code.”

Barbra Streisand, Quincy Jones Join UN’s Campaign

Wed, 27 May 2020 15:42:00 GMT

This year’s campaign will address solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change.

The United Nations Human Rights group will launch this year’s Call for Code campaign on May 27th as part of the organization’s annual call for new tech solutions to global issues. The focus of the 2020 campaign will be on the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change.

Barbra Streisand, Quincy Jones, Celine Dion, Ellen DeGeneres, Cher, Michael Bublé, Jeff Bridges, the Jonas Brothers, Carole King, Rod Stewart, Gigi Hadid, Misty Copeland, Pitbull, Pierce Brosnan and Kristen Bell are among the announced celebrities joining the campaign on Wednesday. Participants also include Cara Delevingne, Cyndi Lauper, Fall Out Boy, Fergie, Gloria Estefan, Jason Mraz, One Republic, Ricky Martin, Rob Thomas, Rita Wilson, Toby Keith and Wiz Khalifa — as well as Olympic champions Lindsay Vonn and Laurie Hernandez; actors Nina Dobrev, Steve Buscemi and Tim Roth; and comedian Margaret Cho.

Lady Gaga created a personal video for Call for Code back in March, asking the world’s 24 million tech developers to work toward solutions to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. “Now is the time to fight back against this coronavirus, to use open source technology, to solve problems at scale and to save lives,” she said. “A great technology solution can span the globe and help so many others. I know you know this. I know this is why you do what you do.”

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton and entrepreneur Mark Cuban are among those serving on the Call for Code Eminent Jury and will select the winning 2020 solutions that address both COVID-19 and climate change.

Celine Dion, Michael Bublé and more join climate change & COVID-19 awareness campaign

Wed, 27 May 2020 15:23:00 GMT

Celine Dion, Cher, Michael Bublé and Rod Stewart have teamed up with more than 50 other celebrities from the worlds of entertainment, sports and fashion in support of a climate change and COVID-19 awareness campaign called Call for Code.

The initiative is designed to advocate for "new tech solutions to help people suffering from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change."

Other music artists participating in the social media awareness campaign include Barbra Streisand, Jonas Brothers, Carole King, OneRepublic, Rob Thomas, Gloria Estefan, Cyndi Lauper, Pentatonix and Jason Mraz.

Artists participating are using their socials to share messages like, "Let's fight back against #COVID19 & #ClimateChange. Join @CallforCode & its partner @UNHumanRights to help create solutions for the world's most vulnerable people."

Last month, Lady Gaga issued a call to “tech rock stars” on behalf of the cause. Since then, hundreds of thousands of tech innovators and developers from 165 countries have signed up for the 2020 Call for Code Global Challenge.

For more info, visit CallforCode.org .

Ellen, Cher, Pitbull and more to tweet for coronavirus tech solutions

Tue, 26 May 2020 13:35:00 GMT

With concerts, sports, movie productions, Broadway shows, and nearly all forms of entertainment currently on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic, the world’s celebrities are uniting to ask tech leaders to find solutions.

Dozens of famous people will on Wednesday tweet in support of a project known as Call for Code, which is “a call-to-action to the 24 million developers around the world to use their skills and mastery of the latest technologies to solve some of the world’s toughest challenges and drive positive and long-lasting change across the world with their code.” The organization claims it is “the largest tech for social good initiative in history.”

The social media posters include such stars as Barbra Streisand, Quincy Jones, Celine Dion, Ellen DeGeneres, Cher, Michael Bublé, Jeff Bridges, the Jonas Brothers, Fall Out Boy, Pitbull, Kristen Bell and Fergie.

But the momentum behind the initiative kicked off in April with words from Lady Gaga, who recorded a video advocating for the cause that was posted on the IBM Developer Twitter account.

“To all of the developers, problem solvers, innovators: We need you right now during COVID-19 more than ever,” she said .

3rd Annual 'Call for Code' Yields Promising Front Runners

Tue, 12 May 2020 19:53:00 GMT

Last month, the sponsors of this year's Call for Code Global Challenge expanded the scope of the event beyond its original focus on solutions that address the impact of climate change to include solutions that mitigate the impact of global pandemics. Last week, they threw a spotlight on three promising front runners on this new second track with solutions that have the potential to contribute to the COVID-19 response efforts.

The 2020 Challenge also includes a dedicated University Edition through a partnership that began last year with the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U). More than 10,000 students participated last year.

IBM senior vice president Bob Lord and Chelsea Clinton, chair of the Clinton Foundation, featured the current three top solutions in a video presentation during last week's IBM Think 2020 online conference. "We really do need reasons for optimism right now," Clinton said. "And these are just extraordinary reasons to be optimistic about our resilience and what we can prove to be possible, while still recognizing the deep and painful challenges that we're in."

The solutions highlighted during the presentation included:

Are you Well?

This mobile app was developed by a team from India-based Altran to relieve overtaxed medical systems by helping individuals evaluate their own symptoms before they get to the hospital. The mobile app combines a smart phone with IBM's Watson Assistant and connects to a global dashboard, which then assigns cases high-, medium-, or low-risk levels (based on thresholds set by the healthcare provider), and then connect them with medical professionals.

Covid Impact

This solution was designed to reduce the financial impact of COVID-19 on small businesses. Created by a team of University of British Columbia graduates from Canada, Kazakhstan, Bangladesh, and Mexico, CovidImpact combines IBM Watson Tone Analyzer with IBM ILOG CPLEX to provide a predictive assessment that forecasts risk levels for a business and curates personalized programs and tips to reduce oncoming financial threats. It also projects a real-time list of sentiment analysis-parsed news articles relevant to small business owners from all major outlets.

Safe Queue

Safe Queue, created by Dave Chura, a developer in Los Angeles, is a community-driven mobile app that aims to replace physical lines at shopping centers, small businesses, and polling places with on-demand virtual lines. The idea is to enable a safer way to manage entry during the pandemic. The solution uses GPS location data to create a virtual queue of those within 1,000 feet of a location, which allows employees to control the queue digitally and validate entry with a randomly generated QR code for each customer. This solution builds on IBM Cloud Foundry for Web app hosting, HERE technologies for geolocation, and IBM Cloudant to store data.

Created by David Clark Cause with Founding Partner IBM, and in partnership with the United Nations Human Rights and The Linux Foundation, Call for Code is among the largest "tech-for-good" challenges of its kind. In 2019, more than 180,000 participants from 165 countries responded to the call, creating more than 5,000 applications focused on natural disaster preparedness and relief, the company says. This year more than 300,000 developers and problem solvers across 168 countries signed up for the Challenge.

Health insurance provider Anthem became a Challenge supporter this year, committing to jointly deploying one of the top solutions from the COVID challenge track.

"After we expanded the focus of this year's competition to include COVID-19, the response has been tremendous," said Dennis Bly, global offering manager for academic developers at IBM, who leads IBM's global university engagement for Call for Code, in an earlier interview "In just under a month, we already have 45,000 participants from 146 countries and growing, who are actively working on solutions to help address the COVID-19 response and climate change."

Challenge participants are building applications on open source software provided by IBM, including Red Hat OpenShift, IBM Cloud, IBM Watson, IBM Blockchain, and data from The Weather Company.

The grand prize for this year's Global Call for Code Challenge is $200,000, plus solution implementation through Code and Response and an opportunity for mentorship and investment in the solution. First and second runners up receive $25,000; third and fourth receive $10,000. The University Edition grand prize is $10,000 dispersed equally across the team, and each student team member will have the opportunity to interview for a potential job at IBM. The runners up also get an interview.

Submissions are being accepted through July 31st.

IBM Highlights Three Call for Code Global Challenge Responses to Fight COVID-19

Thu, 07 May 2020 22:30:00 GMT

The initial solutions have the potential to make a difference in the world and contribute to the pandemic response efforts, the company says.

As part of its expanded 2020 Call for Code Global Challenge focusing on COVID-19, IBM on Tuesday announced three initial top efforts from developers. In a blog post, Bob Lord, SVP of cognitive applications, blockchain, and ecosystems, IBM, noted the solutions "have the potential to change the way we react to the pandemic."

In March, IBM challenged developers to fight COVID-19 by saying: "Answer the call. Build solutions that fight back."

IBM is live streaming the top initial solutions starting at 3 p.m. ET May 5, with Lord joined by Chelsea Clinton, vice chair of the Clinton Foundation, introducing the teams at the IBM Think Virtual Conference. Here is IBM's description of the efforts:

Safe Queue was created by a single developer in Los Angeles, who was inspired to join Call for Code after seeing Lady Gaga's video about the global challenge on the local news. Safe Queue is an app to help tackle those long lines we've all seen during COVID-19 at shopping centers, small businesses, and even polling places. The app replaces physical lines with on-demand virtual lines, creating a safer way to manage entry during COVID-19. The developer used one of our starter kits–the Call for Code Community Cooperation starter kit–to create this solution, as well as IBM Cloud Foundry for web app hosting, HERE technologies for geolocation, and IBM Cloudant to store data.

CovidImpact is a solution to help small businesses during this uncertain time. It was created by a global team that came together at the University of British Columbia, hailing from Canada, Bangladesh, Kazakhstan, and Mexico. Their solution reduces the financial impact of COVID-19 on small businesses, by keeping them updated on the latest relevant news and available grants. CovidImpact uses IBM Watson Tone Analyzer linguistic analysis and other technologies to help forecast businesses' financial risk.

Are You Well? was created by a team from Altran in India and will help reduce the strain on busy healthcare systems. The app helps people evaluate their symptoms, with the help of IBM Watson Assistant. A global dashboard assigns cases a high, medium, or low level of risk based on thresholds set by healthcare providers. The solution then connects people with medical professionals who use the data to prioritize cases and offer care in a safer manner.

In his blog post, Lord wrote, "We are excited to work quickly in partnership with the Linux Foundation, Anthem, and these teams to get their innovations deployed in communities where they're needed most to help mitigate the effects of COVID-19."

The company put out its 2020 Call for Code Global Challenge in February, with the United Nations Human Rights and the Linux Foundation to tackle climate change. In March, IBM expanded the challenge, noting: "In a very short period of time, COVID-19 has brought modern life to a screeching halt, disrupting our healthcare, education, and economic systems. But we can fight back–with technology."

IBM is accepting submissions for both climate change and COVID-19 through July 31, and plans to announce the global challenge winners in October. The company said it is offering participants exclusive access to a new disease tracker API from The Weather Company.

Since 2018, IBM said, this movement has grown to over 300,000 developers and problem solvers across 168 countries who have answered the call. Last year's winning team, Prometeo, created a wearable device that measures carbon monoxide, smoke concentration, humidity, and temperature to monitor firefighter safety in real time as well as to help improve their health outcomes in the long term.

The company said through Code and Response, it brings open source solutions to life through real-world deployments to help first responders in their efforts to save lives. In the past 18 months, this has included deployments of Project Owl and DroneAid in hurricane-hit Puerto Rico, and Prometeo in areas of Spain prone to wildfires, IBM said.

In his post, Lord wrote: "Medical professionals, first responders, and essential workers are rising to the challenges we're faced with today and are leading the way. IBM and David Clark Cause have led a broad ecosystem including the Linux Foundation, UNHR, Verizon, Persistent Systems, Arrow Electronics, Ingram Micro, Cognizant, ICBC, Altran, and celebrities to do our part. President Bill Clinton announced our partnership with the Clinton Global Initiative University for the second year, with a dedicated University Edition within Call for Code."

"Even Lady Gaga recognized the scope and urgency of the issues we're facing and urged "tech rock stars" to lend their time and talent to the cause," he added. "In fact, the developer who created Safe Queue joined Call for Code after seeing her shout-out on a local broadcast."

Call for Code Announces Top Three COVID-19 Solutions Headed to Development Pipeline at IBM Think

Tue, 05 May 2020 22:05:00 GMT

Call for Code Announces Top Three COVID-19 Solutions Headed to Development Pipeline at IBM Think

Last month, IBM expanded this year’s Call for Code Global Challenge from climate change to help develop solutions for COVID-19, and on Tuesday, IBM announced three initial top solutions that have the potential to make a real difference in the world and contribute to the COVID-19 response efforts.

The solutions have come from teams around the world and they address issues like helping small businesses, keeping people safe when they need to go to public places, and people’s well-being.

Call for Code is more than a hackathon. The winning solutions are successfully developed, field-tested and deployed in communities that need them most. Our goal is to work quickly to partner with three teams to get their innovations out in the field where they can quickly make an impact.

We’ve seen overwhelming enthusiasm pour in from the developer community. Word about Call for Code is spreading, too – you may have even seen the video of Lady Gaga encouraging developers, technologists and problem solvers around the world to take on COVID-19 by building innovative technology solutions. In fact, one of the developers whose solution was chosen as a top submission joined the Challenge after seeing the Lady Gaga video on a local broadcast.

IBM launched the Call for Code Global Challenge to take on society’s most pressing issues. Since 2018, this movement has grown to over 300,000 developers and problem solvers across 168 countries who have answered the call. On Tuesday, IBM announced three initial top solutions that have the potential to make a real difference in the world and contribute to the COVID-19 response efforts.

The three top solutions announced Tuesday:

-Safe Queue was created by a single developer in Los Angeles, who was inspired to join Call for Code after seeing Lady Gaga’s video about the global challenge on the local news. Safe Queue is an app to help tackle those long lines we’ve all seen during COVID-19 at shopping centers, small businesses and even polling places. The app replaces physical lines with on-demand virtual lines, creating a safer way to manage entry during COVID-19. The developer used one of our starter kits – the Call for Code Community Cooperation starter kit – to create this solution, as well as IBM Cloud Foundry for web app hosting, HERE technologies for geolocation, and IBM Cloudant to store data.

-COVID Impact is a solution to help small businesses during this uncertain time. It was created by a global team that came together at the University of British Columbia, hailing from Canada, Bangladesh, Kazakhstan and Mexico. Their solution reduces the financial impact of COVID-19 on small businesses, by keeping them updated on the latest relevant news and available grants. COVID Impact uses IBM Watson Tone Analyzer linguistic analysis and other technologies to help forecasts businesses’ financial risk.

-The "Are You Well?" app, created by a team from Altran in India, will help reduce the strain on busy healthcare systems. Their app helps people evaluate their symptoms, with the help of IBM Watson Assistant. A global dashboard assigns cases a high, medium or low level of risk based on thresholds set by healthcare providers. The solution then connects people with medical professionals who use the data to prioritize cases and offer care in a safer manner.

"The response for the 2020 Call for Code Global Challenge has been tremendous," said Bob Lord, Senior Vice President, Cognitive Applications at IBM.

There is still an opportunity to join the 2020 Call for Code Global Challenge. Register and get all the resources you need here, including exclusive access to a new disease tracker API from The Weather Company. We’ll continue to accept submissions for both climate change and COVID-19 through July 31, and plan to announce our global challenge winners in October.

Lady Gaga Calls on Tech Developers to Step Up During COVID-19 Crisis

Tue, 07 Apr 2020 18:42:00 GMT

Pop star speaks out for initiative supported by United Nations and IBM

Lady Gaga has called for the world’s 24 million tech developers to work toward solutions to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The pop star issued her Call for Code statement Tuesday, in association with the 2020 IBM Call for Code Global Challenge. The initiative was created in 2018 by David Clark Cause and is supported by United Nations Human Rights and the Linux Foundation.

In a video message posted to Twitter, Gaga said, “To all of the developers, problem solvers, innovators, we need you right now during COVID-19 more than ever — your time, your talent — to use technology and data to change the world before the world changes us, even though it already has. Now is the time to fight back against this coronavirus, to use open source technology, to solve problems at scale, and to save lives. A great technology solution can span the globe and help so many others. I know you know this. I know this is why you do what you do.”

She urged those interested to visit the Call for Code website for more information. Interested parties can submit their ideas by April 27 and should focus on three areas: “crisis communications, ways to improve remote learning, and how to inspire cooperative local communities,” according to a release.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton will serve on the Call for Code Eminent Jury for the second year in a row and will select the winning 2020 solutions that address both COVID-19 and climate change. The first three COVID-19 solutions will be chosen by May 5th with deployment beginning May 15th. IBM has pledged $25 million to develop these new ideas.

Lady Gaga Calls on ‘Tech Rock Stars’ to Help Fight Coronavirus With New Global Challenge

Tue, 07 Apr 2020 18:03:00 GMT

Lady Gaga is calling on tech developers to come together and build a solution to shut down COVID-19.

The "Stupid Love" singer recorded a minute-long video message for the IBM Developer Twitter account on Tuesday (April 7) in partnership with a major United Nations Human Rights initiative, Call for Code, to ask innovators to step up.

"To all of the developers, problem solvers, innovators: We need you right now during COVID-19 more than ever," she said. "To use technology and data to change the world, before the world changes us -- even though it already has. Now is the time to fight back against this coronavirus, to use open technology to solve problems at scale and to save lives... I'm asking you to answer the call, build a solution that fights back, that saves lives."

After directing developers to ibm.biz/callforcode to join the initiative, Gaga concluded: "I may have the voice, but you're the tech rock stars."

Gaga's appeal is part of the 2020 IBM Call for Code Global Challenge, which IBM has already put $25 million behind developing top solutions, The initiative is supported by Global Partner UN Human Rights and affiliate the Linux Foundation.

Everyone involved in the Call for Code challenge will be acting fast, too: The first three COVID-19 solutions will be selected by May 5, with deployment beginning May 15, according to a press release.

Prior to her Call for Code appeal, Lady Gaga made the late night talk show rounds on Monday (April 6) to promote another coronavirus effort: the Global Citizen/World Health Organization "One World: Together at Home" concert. Gaga (who helped curate the event) is one of several superstars who will be part of the April 18 show, which will also include appearances from Lizzo, Sir Paul McCartney, Elton John, J Balvin, Kacey Musgraves and many more.

Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert will serve as hosts for the special, which will air on each of their respective networks, NBC, ABC and CBS, on April 18 from 8-10 p.m. ET.

Ahead of the special show, check out Gaga's call-to-action to tech developers below.

Can winning the Call for Code Global Challenge change your life?

Tue, 31 Mar 2020 12:50:10 GMT

The winner of the 2018 Call for Code Global Challenge, Project OWL , is a hardware and software solution that uses Wi-Fi to bring simple communications to civilians who hve become disconnected from the global network because of natural disasters. OWL, an acronym for Organization, Whereabouts and Logistics is a mesh network solution providing offline communication infrastructures that can be set up easily in disaster areas where traditional communications are offline.

The team behind this project came up with the idea after hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico. Project OWL was successfully field-tested in Puerto Rico later that year, as part of the Call for Code Global Challenge, which supports the winning team to further develop their project.

What is truly inspiring is the fact that the founding team at Project OWL was made up of very young developers, including current head of product development Timo Wielink, a 20-year-old Dutch software engineer and developer.

Global Challenge Hackathons, where competition leads to friendship

“I decided to join Project OWL because I knew Bryan Knouse, our CEO,” Timo explains.” I first met him at a hackathon in Boston. We had a very interesting talk, and we ended up teaming up to build an application to submit for that competition. I was going to focus on design while he would focus on the back-end. We actually won the competition, so we decided to keep working together as a team in future competitions.“

“”When Bryan decided to join the 2018 Global Challenge Call For Code, he made a team with some of the people he had met during other hackathons, including Nick Feuer, our current CTO . That’s how Charlie Evans, Taraqur Rahman, and Magus Pereira also came on board. I was finishing my semester at college in Holland at that time, so I started helping them out and later on I joined the project full time. ”

No ugly duckling

Then Timo goes on: “Project OWL’s name was inspired by nature. Everyone knows that owls are predators, but not everyone knows that some owls hunt for ducks. We saw parallels between owls, who can have a wide-range view of their surroundings while flying, and ducks, who spend a considerable amount of their time in the water”.

Project OWL is a hardware and software solution that brings connectivity back to areas struck by a natural disaster. Its network is made up of Ducklinks, small self-powered IoT devices. Ducklinks create a hybrid WiFi and LoRa network that any electronic consumer product can connect to automatically in order to create a web page where an isolated person can share information such as their name, position, immediate needs, and a short message. The information is then sent to first responders.

To make this possible, Ducklinks communicate with a base hardware unit on the ClusterDuck network – the MamaDuck – which in turn connects to the PapaDuck. PapaDuck connects to an infrastructure like local or emergency organizations and logistics teams. Each step of the network brings with it an increase in the longevity and extension of the network.

The overall network infrastructure is supported by an OWL that provides mapping and information tools, to maintain awareness and activity on the network.

Millions of things at the same time

“My role in Project OWL,” Timo explains “is like in a typical startup: millions of things at the same time! My main focus is product development. I am responsible for designing and prototyping our Duck Devices. This can include 3D modelling, software engineering, and manufacturing. Besides that, I do a lot of graphic design for our public website ‘Clusterduck Protocol’ and more.”

The Clusterduck protocol is the communication software developed by Project OWL, and donated to the Linux Foundation to become a full-fledged open-source project. Where openness exists, a community develops. “Currently, we can count on 400+ people from our open-source community, but we are still looking at growing both our team and community, depending on what opportunities we get over the next few months.”

As development progresses, the number of functions in OWL increases. “We gather all kinds of data with our Duck Devices. An example is our weather data in Puerto Rico. We collect temperature, humidity, pressure, and air quality to give very specific weather information for different parts of the island.”

After a hurricane hit Puerto Rico, a pilot project kicked off with IBM in March 2019, building a large-scale network with over 60 ducks spread across 120 square miles. Currently, half of these ducks are still deployed and provide a backbone communications network for when the next natural disaster strikes.

Looking for clients

Project OWL is like many other startups in the early stages, when funding and growth are critical to success. Although the team is willing to welcome venture capital investments, the team is growing their business by focusing on governmental and enterprise areas, and are also exploring funding opportunities from Emergency Response and Energy sectors around the world. A new Global Challenge!

“Let me draw a quick overview of our immediate timeline,” Timo suggests. “I have at least three goals:

To improve and update the DuckLink devices: in the near future, we want to improve our hardware and software. Together with the open-source community, we are looking forward to improving the firmware and adding more capabilities so the Ducks can be used in more areas around the world. We are looking into different technologies to make more durable and sophisticated DuckLink devices;
To finish the Beta of a Data Management System with our open source community to use with the ClusterDuck Protocol;
To continue working with our community in Puerto Rico to expand our network on the ground.”

The ClusterDuck Protocol

The DuckLink device comprises a battery, charging system, antenna and an Arduino board based on the ESP32 microcontroller. The DuckLink includes WiFi and Bluetooth to connect to devices, and us es LoRa, a long range radio technology, to communicate with other Ducks.

Some attention is also being dedicated to operational frequencies because LoRa is not regulated in the same manner everywhere, which can result in legal and administrative issues.

The original project started with parts that were easy to find on the market, but over the last year Project OWL has improved and developed their Ducks to be handheld, waterproof, and durable in the different scenarios they might be used in.

“The protocol is the firmware that runs on the Duck Devices and is there to give developers, civilians and first responders the possibility to build their own mesh network for testing and communication in the areas they need it most,” Timo underlines.” The community is able to buy their own, off the shelf parts and upload the protocol to their devices. With the open-source community, we want to keep developing this protocol to bring communication to areas where it is most needed.”

Hans Boef, lead for Call for Code in Europe, tells us: “What I liked the most about Project OWL’s team was their focus on engineering the best possible solution to help people. They frequently met and partnered with other teams as well. This often happens among the Call for Code teams, but they paid greater attention to this aspect.”

Hans Boef’s expertise is in AI and IoT, where he supports developers in their day-to-day coding challenges. “Next to my role as a developer advocate, I’m the Call for Code lead for Europe, where I coordinate all our activities to help the teams in this challenge. What’s new this year is the increased focus on mentors for every team. When you would like to start the Call for Code challenge and could use the support of a mentor or coach, we’re available to connect you to one of our mentors. In the 2019 edition of Call for Code, the number of participants exceeded 180,000. Such an extraordinary result!“.

Global Challenge: Your time has arrived!

Of course, these are strange and difficult times for everyone. IBM and Codemotion hope that this new Call For Code challenge will help find technological solutions to overcome the big challenges we face with the same effectiveness as the most recent winners, Project OWL and Prometeo (2019).

“This year we added a second challenge to the contest,” confirms Hans. “I expect a lot of interest in the COVID-19 challenge and that’s why we are preparing starter kits. That is some basic code to give to all participants the same start.” These starter kits include:

“At the same time, there are many teams already working on our first proposal about global climate change,” Hans Boef continues, “and more will join later on because it’s still a matter of the utmost importance for all mankind.” For the Climate Change challenge the starter kits can be found here .

The 2020 Call for Code Global Challenge invites developers of all kinds to find solutions to deal with climate change and the Coronavirus (COVID-19) emergency. The best solutions usually come from teams of about five people, in which only one or two members are developers/designers, while the others are experts on the topic of the challenge. Developers thus have the opportunity to work on real needs from the very beginning, rather than starting from a general idea.

IBM’s 2020 Call for Code Challenge Takes on Both Climate Change and COVID-19

Mon, 30 Mar 2020 18:53:00 GMT

The annual challenge aims to address society’s most pressing issues; which is why this year, IBM is asking developers, data scientists and problem solvers to address two urgent crises that have the power to compromise our health, our planet and our survival.

On February 27, IBM and the David Clark Cause, in partnership with United Nations Human Rights and the Linux Foundation, launched the 2020 Call for Code Global Challenge — an annual competition that invites developers and activists to help save lives by building applications fueled by data and open source technology including AI, cloud, blockchain and IoT. IBM works with the winning team to fortify, test and deploy its solution through IBM’s Code and Response initiative. Last year, over 180,000 developers from 165 nations participated in Code and Response and Call for Code and they created more than 5,000 applications focused on natural disaster preparedness and relief. The theme of this year’s Call is climate change.

But, as we all know, life as we know it has rapidly changed in the past month with the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic — revealing the limits of many of the systems we take for granted. So, IBM quickly saw the need to expand the Call to include COVID-19 and is now asking problem-solvers around the world to think about open-source technology solutions to this crisis, as well — specifically in the areas of crisis communication, ways to improve remote learning, and how to inspire cooperative local communities.

Previous winners — including Prometeo (2019) and Project Owl (2018) — along with other applications from these programs continue to be supported by IBM developer teams and partners throughout their testing, scaling, and deployments across communities in need. Prometeo just field-tested its health-monitoring technology in Barcelona, with wildfire firefighters during a controlled burn; and Project Owl, which re-establishes network connectivity in the wake of disasters, has already been deployed in hurricane-hit areas of Puerto Rico.

Learn more about this year's Challenge here .

Call for Code adds COVID-19 to 2020 challenge

Mon, 30 Mar 2020 18:48:00 GMT

The theme of the recently announced 2020 Call for Code Global Challenge has been expanded to include the growing threat of Coronavirus pandemic.

Set up as a five-year, $30 million global initiative, Call for Code was launched two years ago by the David Clark Cause in partnership with IBM, as well as United Nations Human Rights and the Linux Foundation. Its stated aim is to encourage developers to use their skills and mastery of the latest technologies, and to create new ones, to develop practical open source applications that will drive positive and long-lasting change across the world.

The 2020 Call for Code Global Challenge was initially focused on fighting climate change, which the organisers categorised as “the single most pressing issue facing the world today”.

That was just three weeks ago.

Announcing the expanded theme at the weekend, the Call for Code organisers stated: “In a brief period, much has changed. COVID-19 has spread across the world with unprecedented effect and now has the potential to become the greatest crisis of modern times. From its inception, Call for Code was created to take on society’s most pressing issues, which is why we are expanding this year’s Challenge to address both climate change and COVID-19.”

They have made tools available to assist developers to build open source technology solutions that address three main COVID-19 areas:

1. Crisis communication

During an emergency because, communications systems are among the first to become overwhelmed, yet they play a critical role in helping communities understand everything they need to know as quickly as possible.

2. Remote education

Ways are needed to improve remote learning because, with self-isolation, children are being stuck indoors for long periods and need to be kept engaged, entertained and on top of their education.

3. Community cooperation

Self-isolation and the challenges this brings require an understanding not only of what is happening in one’s community, but also how individuals can help others. Technology can be used to promote, inspire and facilitate cooperative communities.

“Together, we have the power to use the latest technology in ways that make an immediate and lasting humanitarian impact in local communities and across the globe. Thank you for answering the call in this unprecedented time in our history,” IBM said in a statement.

Submissions opened on March 22nd and close on July 31st, 2020. Winners will receive $200,000 in cash.

IBM adds coronavirus to 2020 Call for Code Global Challenge

Fri, 20 Mar 2020 23:50:12 GMT

IBM today announced that it will expand the 2020 Call for Code Global Challenge , its developer competition, to include a focus on COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus that's struck over 250,000 people. In the next week, it plans to make three quick-start guides available to help developers create apps that address specific COVID-19 areas, including crisis communication during an emergency; ways to improve remote learning; and how to inspire cooperative local communities.

Developers can register for the challenge starting today to create apps with open source software built on Red Hat OpenShift, IBM Cloud, IBM Watson, IBM Blockchain, and data from The Weather Company. IBM says it will work with the teams who create the most promising solutions to build, fortify, test, and deploy them through The Linux Foundation's Code and Response program.

"We are working with some of the world's leading experts to define the most pressing needs and provide the most helpful resources," IBM said in a statement. "Together, we have the power to use the latest technology in ways that make an immediate and lasting humanitarian impact in local communities and across the globe. Thank you for answering the call in this unprecedented time in our history."

Submissions open today, and grand prize winners will receive $200,000 in cash. The above mentioned guides will become available in the next week.

As previously announced, this year's Call for Code Global Challenge will also aim to foster solutions to climate change and its effects. Starter kits developed by Red Hat, JP Morgan Chase, Persistent Systems, Unity Technologies, NearForm, and Johnson & Johnson -- each of which includes a description of the starter solution, an architectural diagram, and a tutorial with starter code and reference materials -- explain the individual problems people and communities are facing, like water sustainability, energy sustainability, and disaster resiliency.

IBM says it will build a "wide ecosystem" of partners and tech providers to help participants round out their solutions. For example, the HERE location API will let developers access geospatial data, routing, geofencing, and interactive maps.

"The topics in the kits are essential to halting and reversing climate change, and grounded in real-world needs defined by the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction," said IBM. "This is an urgent crisis that has the power to compromise our health, our planet, our survival. We're asking developers, data scientists, and problem solvers to answer the call."

IBM's inaugural 2018 Call for Code Global Challenge designed solar-powered mesh network devices that could be deployed in areas hit hard by natural disasters, such as parts of Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. And last year's grand prize winner developed a health monitoring platform for firefighters.

The 2020 Call for Code Global Challenge takes on COVID-19

Fri, 20 Mar 2020 13:01:08 GMT

Nearly one month ago, together with Creator David Clark Cause and in partnership with United Nations Human Rights and the Linux Foundation, we announced climate change as the theme for the 2020 Call for Code Global Challenge. In that brief period, much has changed. COVID-19 (Coronavirus) has spread across the world with unprecedented effect and now has the potential to become the greatest crisis of modern times.

From its inception Call for Code was created to take on society’s most pressing issues, which is why we are expanding this year’s Challenge to address both climate change and COVID-19, two urgent crises that have the power to compromise our health, our planet, our survival. We’re asking developers, data scientists, and problem solvers to answer the Call.

On COVID-19:

In a very short period of time, COVID-19 has revealed the limits of the systems we take for granted. The 2020 Call for Code Global Challenge will arm you with resources (see here) to build open source technology solutions that address three main COVID-19 areas: crisis communication during an emergency, ways to improve remote learning and how to inspire cooperative local communities.

Crisis Communication : In times of crisis, communications systems are one of the first systems to become overwhelmed. Chatbots help respond to tens, even hundreds, of thousands of messages a day. Whether via text, websites or communication apps like WhatsApp, being able to converse with chatbots and other resources can play a critical role in helping communities understand everything they need to know rapidly and free up customer service resources to focus on higher level issues. Whether that’s correct hand washing procedure, how to properly detect symptoms, or local updates on quarantine, providing crisis communications digitally has a major role to play.

Remote Education: Where possible, people who are self-isolating are being asked to work from home, which presents its own set of challenges: transitioning to a new home office or, as some schools close for the foreseeable future, children find themselves stuck indoors for long periods of time. It is important to keep them engaged, entertained and on top of their education. Technology has a pivotal role to play, whether that’s creating ad-hoc classrooms, or helping parents quickly adapt to home-schooling.

Community Cooperation: Your local community must stand united, operate efficiently and be there for its constituents more than ever before. Understanding not only what is happening in your neighborhood, but also how you can help others, or how others can help you, is vital. Consider how you can incorporate everything from weather data to local food and medical supply information to help your local community better deal with a crisis — especially those who need it most.

On Climate Change:

As previously planned, today we are revealing our 2020 Call for Code Challenge climate change starter kits (see here). These three quick-start guides explain the individual problems people and communities are facing, and help you start creating applications tied to easy-to-understand use cases in just minutes.

To help define the specific situations caused by climate change where your innovations could be most helpful, a few weeks ago IBM partnered with the world’s leading humanitarian experts for our kickoff event in Geneva at the historic Palais Wilson, Headquarters of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Together with UN humanitarian experts, and eminent technologists from Red Hat, JP Morgan Chase, Persistent Systems, Unity Technologies, NearForm, and Johnson & Johnson, we collaborated to create our three climate change starter kits.

Each kit focuses on a key topic — water sustainability, energy sustainability and disaster resiliency — essential to halting and reversing climate change, and grounded in real-world needs defined by the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. These are the areas where you can have the greatest impact:

Water sustainability : This IoT based solution aims to help farmers, particularly those in shifting climate realities, monitor hyper-localized weather data and adapt their crop strategies to optimize water usage.

Energy sustainability : With a goal of building consumer awareness about energy costs across the manufacturing process, this solution creates the framework for a new global product labelling system that would include a comprehensive Climate Impact Rating (CIR), similar to the labels on food products, with incentives for consumers and retailers to drive purchases of more efficient products.

Disaster resiliency : To help communities prepare for floods, this app will provide residents education at all stages of an event, from a checklist of essential survival materials to real-time information on the capacity of local shelters.

The kits include a description of the starter solution, an architectural diagram, and a tutorial with starter code and reference materials. With these starter kits, you can get a head start creating a sustainable solution to halt and reverse climate change. To further increase the impact you can make, IBM is building a wide ecosystem of partners and tech providers to help participants round out their solutions. For example, the HERE location API lets you access geospatial data, routing, geofencing and interactive maps.

We’ll follow up in a week with more details on our three COVID-19-specific starter kits to help you jump-start your solutions. As with climate change, we are working with some of the world’s leading experts to define the most pressing needs and provide the most helpful resources. That said, you don’t need to wait. You can register and get started now creating applications with our open source-powered software built on Red Hat OpenShift, IBM Cloud, IBM Watson, IBM Blockchain, and data from The Weather Company. As we’ve done the previous two years, IBM will work with the teams who create the most promising solutions to build, fortify, test and deploy them through IBM Code and Response.

Together, we have the power to use the latest technology in ways that make an immediate and lasting humanitarian impact in local communities and across the globe.

Thank you for answering the Call in this unprecedented time in our history.

IBM ‘Call For Code’ Challenges Software Developers To Address Climate Change

Tue, 10 Mar 2020 22:23:02 GMT

Developers like pizza and soda (it’s a necessary fuel base combo), but they also need a purpose. This reality is being reflected in the nature of the software coding challenges that we’re currently seeing staged around the globe. Code challenges, hackfests, hackathons and app creator contests used to (before the turn of the last millennium) run with fairly open remits i.e. developers were typically challenged to ‘build something amazing’, in whatever stream they felt the need to follow.

In 2020, a lot of people would agree that the planet needs more than just another Twitter, so coder challenges are now reflecting the Earth factor.

There are plenty of coder tournaments to choose from. Microsoft has its Imagine Cup, Salesforce has had its various Force.com cloud developer challenges, Oracle has its ‘Code Innovate’ hackfests as does SAP, ServiceNow and a host of the other big players. The open source community has another string of challenges, some of which are listed here by Freecodecamp’s Daniel Borowski. And then there’s IBM.

Call for Code

IBM’s work in the developer challenge space is known as Call for Code. Now in its third year, this is an initiative created in partnership with the United Nations Human Rights body and the Linux Foundation. The 2020 for Code Global Challenge coincides with the United Nation’s 75th anniversary and sets out to invite the world’s software developers to help fight climate change with open source-powered technology.

The fact that IBM is championing open source technologies is no doubt charged by the firm’s 2018 acquisition of Red Hat . Similarly, the fact that IBM is championing initiatives to address climate change is emboldened by the firm’s 2016 acquisition of The Weather Company . Add these factors to the pre-existing IBM stack and you can see why the company has highlighted a code challenge selection pack that includes Red Hat OpenShift, IBM Cloud, IBM Watson (for AI), IBM Blockchain and data from The Weather Company. The goal is to employ technology in new ways that can make an immediate and lasting humanitarian impact in communities around the world.

But do software developers really care about climate change? Aren’t they still more focused on pizza, soda and massively multiplayer online role-playing game gaming? An IBM study conducted by Morning Consult surveyed more than 3,000 developers, first responders and social activists across China, Columbia, Egypt, India, Japan, Spain, United Kingdom and the United States and found: 77% of first responders and developers surveyed agree with the statement 'climate change is the single most pressing issue facing my generation’.

Should we bring that (arguably somewhat loaded) statistic into question? That may be the first that time software developers have been questioned ‘alongside’ first responders and social activists. These three groups hang out together all the time do they? If it is a flaky statistic directed at a contrived group based upon a preloaded statement, then fine… what we can still takeaway is the fact that younger people across an even a seemingly artificial social cohort do all care about climate change. Let’s move on.

Natural disaster preparedness

Over 180,000 participants from 165 nations took part in Call for Code in 2019; they created more than 5,000 applications focused on natural disaster preparedness and relief. This year in 2020, Call for Code is challenging applicants to create innovations based on open source technologies to help halt and reverse the impact of climate change.

“There is an urgent need to take action against climate change and IBM is uniquely positioned to connect leading humanitarian experts with the most talented and passionate developers around the world,” said Bob Lord, IBM senior vice president of cognitive applications and developer ecosystems. “IBM is determined to identify, deploy and scale technology solutions that can help save lives, empower people and create a better world for future generations.”

Lord noted that IBM has been mobilizing throughout the company, from policy commitments on climate, to IBM’s weather forecasting capabilities powered by AI and supercomputers. Special representative of the United Nations Secretary-General (SRSG) for disaster risk reduction Mami Mizutori reflected Lord’s comments by saying that climate change is the most critical issue of our time — with a multitude of localized contributing factors and cascading effects that cannot be solved by a single organization — so, therefore, we (the planet) need a global network to fight this together.

IBM

Last year’s Call for Code global challenge winning team Prometeo created a wearable device that measures carbon monoxide, smoke concentration, humidity and temperature to monitor firefighter safety in real-time as well as to help improve their health outcomes in the long term.

The solution has been developed further through IBM’s Code and Response program and has just completed its first wildfire field test during a controlled burn near Barcelona, Spain. Prometeo was developed by a team comprising a veteran firefighter, an emergency medical nurse and three developers. As recently piloted, the Prometeo hardware-software solution is based on multiple IBM Cloud services.

“With 24 million developers in the world, we wanted to challenge... but also contribute back to society,” said Willie Tejada , IBM general manager & chief developer advocate. Tejada explained that Call for Code timeline:

In 2018 Call for Code focused on natural disasters.
In 2019 Call for Code focused on wild fires and fire fighters.
In 2020 Call for Code focused on climate change.

“So with the focus now on climate change, we drilling down on the whole root of the problem. IBM has wide-scale access to entire [technology… and other] ecosystems and we have had interest from 165 world countries in relation to this challenge. The winners in the competition get to have IBM work to ‘fortify’ their solutions and see them become more fully developed,” said Tejada.

Spanish safety software

Salomé Valero is a software developer at Prometeo , the Spanish fire tech start-up which won last year's Call for Code Challenge. Valero explained the rationale behind her team’s software development efforts and said that when firefighters put their lives at risk extinguishing fires, they risk their health for a number of reasons including smoke inhalation.

“Because of this, we wanted to build a prototype device for potential global use (and we know that fire fighters all over the world have the same challenges) with onboard software to collect information on the amount of carbon monoxide, heat exposure and humidity that these men and women are exposed to during the course of their job,” said Valero.

The Prometeo device is worn on the front of the jacket and collects data from a number of sensors. The data is then downloaded (in fact uploaded) to the IBM Cloud service for analysis. The team developed the firmware on the device and the software console (the user interface) that works with IBM Cloud. The current device connects via a USB cable, but Valero and team are working to develop a next-generation 2.0 device that uses edge computing so that the analytics can be performed in real time while the firefighter is on the job even with intermittent connectivity.

“The stereotype of the self-centred developer that doesn’t want to do something that really helps other people on the planet is changing. They used to be worried about pizza and soda… but now they’re widening their view,” insisted Valero. “I should know, I’m one of those developers!”

IBM’s Willie Tejada further colored the discussion here by saying that if IBM Call for Code had ‘just’ tabled climate change as the topic of the programme here, then perhaps the interest would not perhaps have been so great.

“But what we did was to really challenge the developer – programmers are of course known for their mindset that essentially hinges around the proposition that everything in the world can be solved with software and they love that kind of challenge,” said Tejada. “There’s a wide fabric of data that needs to be managed in this use case. For example in a wildfire arena, if one family refuses to evacuate, that’s as good as the whole town staying… so we’re dealing with both micro and macro views of data… and knowing what both mean ‘in context’ is the only way to take the correct real time action.”

Time for change

Although this account of the work should be tempered with a degree of skepticism (i.e. developers and first responders are rarely seen in the same takeout joints), it’s clear that IBM is big enough and philanthropic enough to want to promote this type of socially responsible development.

After all, for good or bad, we already have Twitter and we already have Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Fortnite, Candy Crush Saga, Angry Birds and Assassin’s Creed… so let’s move on and start saving the planet, charging extra money for plastic bags and looking at polluted city emissions.

Once we’ve done all that, we can crack a soda, order a pizza and get gaming. Just recycle your cans, make sure your pizza box is biodegradable and be sure to carbon offset your flight to the gaming convention.

2020 Call for Code Global Challenge Led by IBM Takes on Climate Change on 75th Anniversary of United Nations

Sun, 16 Feb 2020 13:47:39 GMT

77% of developers and first responders surveyed globally say climate change is the single most pressing issue facing their generation

Geneva, February 26, 2020 – Headquarters of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights – Today, Call for Code Founding Partner IBM and Creator David Clark Cause, in partnership with United Nations Human Rights and the Linux Foundation announced this year’s Call for Code Global Challenge, inviting the world’s software developers and innovators to help fight climate change with open source-powered technology.

On its 75th anniversary, the United Nations is demanding a ‘global reality check’ and has launched the biggest-ever global conversation on how to address the world’s most pressing issues such as climate change. Heeding the UN’s rallying cry to help build the future we want, IBM is joining forces with key UN agencies and world leaders to help tackle the climate crisis.

Following two successful years, the 2020 Call for Code Global Challenge encourages and fosters the creation of practical applications built on open source software including Red Hat OpenShift, IBM Cloud, IBM Watson, IBM Blockchain, and data from The Weather Company. The goal is to employ technology in new ways that can make an immediate and lasting humanitarian impact in communities around the world.

A recent global IBM study conducted by Morning Consult surveyed more than 3,000 developers, first responders and social activists across China, Columbia, Egypt, India, Japan, Spain, United Kingdom, and the United States, and found:

77% of first responders and developers surveyed agree with the statement 'Climate change is the single most pressing issue facing my generation.'

79% of respondents agree that climate change is something that can be reduced or combated with technology.

87% of respondents feel it is important that a potential employer has taken action on climate change.

Three quarters of respondents agree that the open source community can help scale climate change solutions to communities in need.

Eight in ten respondents agree that most people want to do something to help combat climate change, but don't know where to start.

Over 180,000 participants from 165 nations took part in Call for Code in 2019; they created more than 5,000 applications focused on natural disaster preparedness and relief. This year Call for Code is challenging applicants to create innovations based on open source technologies to help halt and reverse the impact of climate change.

“There is an urgent need to take action against climate change, and IBM is uniquely positioned to connect leading humanitarian experts with the most talented and passionate developers around the world,” said Bob Lord, IBM Senior Vice President of Cognitive Applications and Developer Ecosystems. “IBM is determined to identify, deploy, and scale technology solutions that can help save lives, empower people, and create a better world for future generations.

Lord noted that IBM has been mobilizing throughout the company, from policy commitments on climate to IBM’s weather forecasting capabilities powered by AI and supercomputers.

“Over these past two years through Call for Code UNDRR has seen the potential for developers to tackle major societal challenges, and developers will have a crucial role in our response to the climate emergency," said Mami Mizutori, Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General (SRSG) for Disaster Risk Reduction. "Climate change is the most critical issue of our time, with a multitude of localized contributing factors and cascading effects that cannot be solved by a single organization. We need a global network to fight this together.”

IBM and David Clark Cause are thrilled to launch the third year of Call for Code in Geneva with new sponsor Unity Technologies, returning sponsor Persistent Systems, returning supporters Johnson & Johnson and Capgemini, and new supporters Red Hat and Nearform. We also welcome continued collaboration from returning supporters Bank of China, Morgan Stanley, Cognizant, Infosys, Arrow Electronics, and the Clinton Foundation, in addition to the broad ecosystem of companies, foundations, universities, and celebrities like Ellen DeGeneres, Jonas Brothers, Sting, and Morgan Freeman supporting the initiative.

“As part of the 75th anniversary of the United Nations, we are proud to work with our Founding Partner IBM to help commemorate this momentous occasion by focusing the 2020 Call for Code Global Challenge on climate change. By inspiring and empowering developers around the world to help with this global threat, Call for Code can generate real impact,” said David Clark, Creator of Call for Code and CEO of David Clark Cause. “I am also excited President Bill Clinton returns for the third year as an eminent judge for the Challenge, along with leading experts in human rights, disaster response, business, and technology from all over the world.”

Last year’s Call for Code Global Challenge winning team, Prometeo , created a wearable device that measures carbon monoxide, smoke concentration, humidity, and temperature to monitor firefighter safety in real-time as well as to help improve their health outcomes in the long-term.

The solution has been developed further through IBM’s Code and Response program and has just completed its first wildfire field test during a controlled burn with the Grups de Reforç d'Actuacions Forestals (GRAF) and the Grup d'Emergències Mèdiques (GEM) dels Bombers de la Generalitat de Catalunya near Barcelona, Spain. Prometeo was developed by a team comprising a veteran firefighter, an emergency medical nurse, and three developers. As recently piloted, the Prometeo hardware-software solution is based on multiple IBM Cloud services.

Other applications like 2018 Call for Code winner Project Owl and 2018 Puerto Rico Call for Code hackathon winner DroneAid have also been cultivated through the Code and Response program.

About Call for Code
Developers have revolutionized the way people live and interact with virtually everyone and everything. Where most people see challenges, developers see possibilities. That's why David Clark Cause created and launched Call for Code in 2018 alongside Founding Partner IBM. This five-year, $30 million global initiative is a rallying cry to developers to use their skills and mastery of the latest technologies, and to create new ones, to drive positive and long-lasting change across the world with their code. Call for Code global winning solutions, among others, are further developed and deployed via IBM's Code and Response initiative.

About UN75
The United Nations launched the UN75 campaign - the largest, most inclusive conversation on the role of global cooperation in building a better future for all. The campaign will see the UN spark dialogues throughout 2020 in diverse settings across the world. In a ‘global reality check’, four innovative data streams will build the first ever repository of crowd-sourced solutions to major global challenges, including climate change.

Purpose At Work: How IBM Partners With Developers To Scale Impact

Fri, 18 Oct 2019 17:16:00 GMT

While many companies promote social good initiatives, not all programs are strategically sound or measurably impactful. And while there is no easy solution for how companies lead with their purpose, there are some key components that can set you up for truly meaningful success. Tap into your core capabilities. Make it scalable. Inspire others to join you.

Prometeo Device

An excellent example of a brand deploying best practices when it comes to social impact is IBM. The company’s Call for Code and Code and Response programs leverage IBM’s technology to address some of the world’s most pressing problems.

“We’re enabling all these good ideas and letting them flourish on top of the IBM platform,” Bob Lord, Senior VP of Cognitive Applications and Developer Ecosystems at IBM, tells We First Branding .

As Founding Partner, IBM teamed with the Creator of Call for Code, David Clark Cause, to rally programmers around the world to tackle issues like climate disasters. The program, spearheaded by IBM and including Charitable Partner United Nations Human Rights, is a five-year, $30 million drive. This year, Lord says over 5,000 applications focused on mitigating the effects of natural disasters were created from more than 180,000 participants across 165 nations.

To ensure deployment, IBM invested another $25 million over four years into the Code and Response program. Code and Response focuses on developing and implementing open source solutions on the ground. Winners receive help from IBM and The Linux Foundation, as well as others with similar interests. “This is about taking the winner and getting that idea out into the open source world and implementing it in the market,” Lord explains.

Team Prometeo in Barcelona

There’s also a benefit to corporate culture. “Instead of filling sandbags, we send in the IBM corporate service team, either pre or post an event happening,” Lord says. “We’re helping save real lives. That’s a big employee morale boost.”

This year’s Call for Code was awarded to Prometeo, a group composed of a nurse, firefighter and developers. Prometeo designed a hardware-software solution that tracks temperature, fumes and other key variables to keep firefighters safe. The information is sent to IBM’s Cloud IoT platform. A Node-RED workflow then sends the data to the IBM Watson-based machine learning model, which distills the information into a simple color-coded status for fire command centers, IBM explains in a press release .

Last year, Project Owl won the Call for Code challenge. Like Prometeo, Project Owl is a hardware-software solution. Project Owl’s technology establishes Wifi connectivity in dead zones in the wake of natural disasters. This can mean life or death in a disaster. IBM and Project Owl are doing tests in Puerto Rico, and they are seeing positive results in no service dead zones where infrastructure is still damaged from Hurricane Maria.

“One challenge when it comes to innovating for social good is that it can be hard to know how to scale – that’s where IBM and our partners come in,” Lord states. “We’re scaling the ideas by putting it in an open source world and the Linux Foundation. The goal is that the developer in Osaka, Japan, can instantly pick up Project Owl and implement it if they need to.”

The lesson here is that IBM is helping others help themselves by using its core capabilities to lay the groundwork for impact. By empowering others to have an impact, IBM is positioning itself as a leader, driving earned media and building its own impact credentials.

There are critical lessons here for all brands. When designing your company’s social good initiatives, ask yourself, “How can my business’s expertise help others achieve our collective purpose driven goals?”

It’s also important to note that IBM is shining the light on key partners to make this work. This is an important example of how a brand must be the chief celebrant, and not celebrity, of its stakeholder community. For in a marketplace suspicious of self-serving purpose marketing, the more effectively you shine the spotlight on others, the more legitimately you build your own credentials.

By way of example, IBM invites leaders from other organizations to participate in these initiatives from Slack to Ingram Micro Inc. to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. “We’re supporting it, we’re influencing it for social good. But it’s the broader community of experts in this field who are bringing this whole thing together,” Lord says.

What’s more, IBM is offering programmers an opportunity to use their skills for good. “We’ve sort of tapped into this idea that developers and data scientists want to help solve a problem,” Lord says. “If there’s a focused effort where you can actually give back to the world through your brain and your coding, it can elevate your self worth. Our whole idea is to create an environment where we’re making the developer the hero.”

The important insight here is that it’s important to build mutually beneficial partnerships focused on a common goal. By welcoming partners to join you, you can achieve more than you would on your own.

This collaborative model also means that you don’t necessarily have to start your own initiative. You can partner with another organization to scale your combined impact and showcase your value. A great example of this sort of purposeful collaboration is the partnership between IBM and the Clinton Global Initiative University.

“They have a program of hackathons where they go into universities and brainstorm ideas to put into action. There wasn’t really technology behind it,” Lord says. “We put the Code and Response technology platform underneath. Now when they do these idea sessions, you’ve got developers who are building tools and technologies underneath it. Last year we only accessed a thousand students. This year we’re reaching 10,000 students.”

As positive as this sounds, there are always obstacles on the road to growth as Lord explains. “It’s critical to understand the vision,” Lord says. “A lot of leaders change the narrative of their efforts and confuse the people who want to participate. Instead, always go back to the fundamentals of simple and consistent storytelling and build third party validation around that scalable story.”

IBM’s narrative around Call for Code and Code and Response is to “leverage this great technology so it can help solve societal problems globally.” At the same time, IBM must build its business. “It’s also about winning the hearts and minds of the developers in my clients,” Lord says. We want them to consider Watson or IBM Blockchain when they start making IT buying decisions.”

When you combine profit and purpose you can expand your social impact and your bottom line. To have the greatest impact, find ways to use your skills for good, partner with others and scale those solutions together.

IBM and David Clark Cause Announce Call for Code 2019 Global Prize Winner: Health Solution for Firefighters

Mon, 14 Oct 2019 17:18:00 GMT

NEW YORK , Oct. 14, 2019 — The winner of the Call for Code 2019 Global Challenge has been announced: a system that uses artificial intelligence and the internet of things to guard the safety of firefighters as they battle blazes.

The winning project, Prometeo, submitted by a team from Barcelona , was announced by the competition’s Founding Partner, IBM (NYSE: IBM ), and Creator, David Clark Cause, during a celebration at the United Nations Delegates Dining Room in New York City on October 12th.

The Prometeo team, which includes a nurse, a firefighter, and software developers, was awarded& the Call for Code grand prize of& USD $200,000.

Through IBM’s $25 million Code and Response initiative that fosters the creation and deployment of open source technologies to help solve some of society’s most pressing challenges, the team will receive deployment support from IBM, The Linux Foundation, and other partners interested in scaling their solution. As part of the program, Prometeo will also be further developed and deployed via the IBM Corporate Service Corps in communities in greatest need.

For more information, including video and photos from the event, visit IBM Newsroom .

This firefighter monitoring device is designed to protect first responders as wildfires spread

Sat, 12 Oct 2019 23:58:58 GMT

Prometeo, which tracks firefighter’s health and exposure to smoke and toxins in real time, is the winner of IBM’s 2019 Call for Code challenge.

Firefighters battling wildfires face more danger than just getting burned. They’re in the field for hours, sometimes days, while being exposed to high heat, humidity, and smoke inhalation. Prometeo , a Spanish startup, aims to better protect the health of those first responders with individual wearable devices. Each straps to your arm and is about the size of a smartphone.

These monitor both real-time risks—say, that air quality levels are getting dangerous—and the cumulative effect of exposure over time. That data transmits into a learning platform that uses IBM’s Watson AI to help field commanders interpret whether a firefighter is safe or not and give them a clear signal (green, yellow, or red) about the health status of their teams.

Prometeo just won IBM’s second annual Call for Code competition, which rewards technological solutions that improve responses to natural disasters. The group behind the startup, which includes a firefighter, a nurse, and a trio of coders, will receive $200,000 and additional guidance and support from IBM to help it scale quickly as an open-source project available for worldwide adoption.

The victory marks a turning point for IBM’s competition. Call for Code is part of a $30 million five-year effort that works with the United Nations Human Rights Council to help startups identify and tackle pressing social issues. The winner receives additional support from IBM’s separate Code and Response initiative, which is funneling $25 million into ways to scale these efforts quickly, including through better access to IBM experts and the members of its in-house volunteering program.

During its inaugural year in 2018, IBM helped match some teams of programmers with disaster experts to help them learn about what problems are most pressing and what solutions might be a leap forward. “What’s different this year in Call for Code 2019 is that these developers, instead of just being a bunch of technologists going after a problem, they are actually a lot of cross-functional teams,” says Daniel Krook, who works at IBM as the chief technology officer of the initiative. “So you have teams that have embedded people that are experts in natural disasters, who are able to be there right as the application is being built, and [judge] whether it’s important, how it can change, what it should do, and how it exists in the context of existing solutions.”

Prometeo, which is Spanish for Prometheus, a nod to the Greek god that first gave mankind fire, started roughly a dozen years ago, when firefighter and cofounder Juan Herrera, a member of a firefighting squad called Bombers GRAF in Cerdanyola del Valles, Spain, initiated a program to manually track the health impact of team members as they deployed. Those measurements were limited because they were self-reported and cataloged by hand, making it difficult to spot patterns the might signal problems.

The addition of IBM’s processing power speeds the learning curve. “As an incident commander I will feel a lot better knowing what I am really asking my people to do,” says Marc Castillo, a special operations division group leader who works with the Bombers, in a video about the project . “It’s not only the physical effort to put the fire out, but exposure for many hours to those conditions. What that will mean for your health in the future.”

Projects in the contest were judged on their ability to solve a problem efficiently and effectively with a concept that was creative but also clearly defined and quickly deployable. Krook says the best are also “intuitive . . . adding value versus maybe adding technology to a problem that doesn’t need it.” Prometeo is especially timely. July 2019 was the hottest month ever recorded in world history, and globally wildfires continue to spark and burn at unprecedented frequency and intensity. Europe has recorded more than 2,000 fire outbreaks this year, about three times the average annual rate in recent years.

More than 180,000 participants from 165 countries competed in this year’s contest. In September, IBM announced that it had narrowed the field to five finalists —who will also receive some prize money and the chance to continue building their projects with support from the Linux Foundation, which is helping to develop an open-source community around them. “The goal is to take the seed of the idea these teams create and give them the tools and support they need—the testing, the deployment, the fortification—to make it a reality,” Krook says.

There isn’t an exact timeline for Prometeo’s widespread deployment, but the idea is to get it to market as soon as possible. The 2018 Call for Code winner, Project Owl , has refined its design and is field-testing it in Puerto Rico. Project Owl created a deployable network of rubberized “ducklinks,” or mini-Wi-Fi relays, that would be airdropped to create an emergency mobile network in places where communications go down. They’re modeled after the ultra-durable rubber ducky.

With IBM helping on the back end, Krook hopes more people will offer their own ambitious ideas. “People that weren’t necessarily technical or considered themselves a developer are really recognizing that this technology can be used and put to work and it doesn’t take a computer science degree to do it,” he says.

AI-based firefighter safety startup Prometeo wins IBM Call for Code Challenge

Sat, 12 Oct 2019 21:29:07 GMT

During an event at the United Nations Delegates Dining Room in New York City, IBM unveiled the winners of its annual Call for Code Global Challenge. The competition, which is targeted at computing solutions for global problems, crowned five winners, ranging from first responders to healthcare info.

Prometeo took the top prize for its Watson-based AI solution targeted at firefighters. The team, which is led by a 33-year firefighting veteran, has developed a tool designed to monitor health and safety in the industry, both long term and in real time. The Spanish startup developed a smartphone-sized device that straps onto the wearer’s arm to gauge things like temperature, smoke and humidity.

“If the color signal is green, the health of the firefighter is okay,” co-founder Salomé Valero explains on IBM’s site. “But if the color signal is yellow or red, the command center must do something. They must take immediate action in order to rescue or remove the firefighter from the fire.”

The team is working to roll out the device for testing in Spain, but is currently seeking funding for the project. The $200,000 prize from IBM ought to help out a bit.

The second place prize went to India/China/U.S.-based Sparrow, which has developed a platform for addressing physical and psychological health during natural disasters. UCLA’s team, Rove, scored third place with a similar concept.

Call for Code is a five-year program that aims to hand out $30 million for teams addressing widespread societal issues.

Jessica Biel, Cher and More Stars Take the Call for Code Global Challenge on World Environment Day

Thu, 06 Jun 2019 18:20:00 GMT

Jessica Biel , Cher , Sting , Pitbull and more celebs are using their star power for good.

The group, alongside LL Cool J, Morgan Freeman, Toby Keith, Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne, Placido Domingo, Robin Thicke, Juanes, Jess Glynne, Pentatonix and others, are lending their voices in support of UN Environment Day by promoting the Call for Code 2019 Global Challenge.

This year’s Call for Code Global Challenge focuses on supporting the health and well-being of people and communities affected by natural disasters. Through July 29, developers and data scientists around the world can contribute their innovative ideas and technology solutions rooted in open source. Celebs, social advocates and more participated in the #CallforCode global social campaign on UN World Environment Day on Thursday.

“Since Call for Code was announced last May from the VivaTech conference in Paris by IBM Chairman, President and CEO Ginni Rometty, with an assist from French President Emanuel Macron, we’re proud to say Call for Code has become a global movement that continues to inspire developers around the world to code for social purpose,” Call for Code Creator David Clark said in a statement obtained by ET.

“We’re also grateful for the support we’re continuing to receive from celebrities this UN World Environment Day. I’m excited to see Morgan Freeman, Sting, Cher, Pitbull, Jessica Biel, Toby Keith, Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, Leona Lewis, LL Cool J, Robin Thicke and others lend their voices to this important tech for good initiative,” he added.

Céline Dion, The Jonas Brothers, Robin Thicke, Olympic Champions Laurie Hernandez and Apolo Ohno back Call for Code 2019 Global Challenge

Tue, 09 Apr 2019 23:32:00 GMT

Céline Dion, The Jonas Brothers, Robin Thicke, Monica, Little Big Town, Olympic Champions Laurie Hernandez and Apolo Ohno as well as many other social advocates back Call for Code 2019 Global Challenge to Support the Health and Well-Being of People and Communities affected by Natural Disasters

LOS ANGELES, April 9, 2019 /Chicago Daily Herald/ — Call for Code 2019, created by leading philanthropic producer David Clark, CEO of David Clark Cause and Founding Partner IBM, is the largest engagement of developers in history. Call for Code was created in 2018 to challenge the 23 million developers around the world to help solve social challenges with sustainable software solutions. This year’s Call for Code 2019 Global Challenge focuses on supporting the health and well-being of people and communities affected by natural disasters.

To show support for Call for Code and its charitable partners, celebrities, athletes and social advocates lent their powerful voices to help people and communities affected by natural disasters by participating in the #CallforCode global social campaign on World Health Day, April 7th.

“Since Call for Code launched last year, we received submissions for the Global Challenge from 156 nations, which contributed to making Call for Code the largest engagement of developers in history,” said Call for Code creator David Clark. “We’re also grateful for the support we’re continuing to receive from celebrities, athletes and renowned organizations. In support of Call for Code on World Health Day, I’m grateful to Céline Dion, The Jonas Brothers, Robin Thicke, Monica, Laurie Hernandez, Apolo Ohno, Brian Littrell, Little Big Town, United Nations Human Rights, the Clinton Global Initiative University, and many others who helped promote Call for Code globally via their social followers.”

“As Founding Partner of Call for Code, we are proud to support developers as change agents, and to empower them to innovate for social good,” said Bob Lord, SVP, Cognitive Applications and Developer Ecosystems, IBM. “We’re proud of the amazing tech solutions that came out of Call for Code in 2018, and are now excited to see the submissions the global developer community submits as part of this year’s Call for Code 2019 Global Challenge.”

The winner of the inaugural Call for Code Global Prize in 2018 was Project Owl. Project Owl created an innovative two-part software and hardware solution that allows civilians and first responders to stay in touch via an easily-deployable, Wi-Fi-enabled mesh network when normal communications networks have been compromised.

Call for Code aims to help deliver support to disaster victims, which is especially important as last year ranked as one of the worst years on record for catastrophic events, including fires, floods, earthquakes and storms.

In recognition for its global reach and impact, Call for Code was named an honoree at the 2019 CES Innovation Awards.

Jonas Brothers, Celine Dion, Robin Thicke & More Stars Support World Health Day

Mon, 08 Apr 2019 23:10:00 GMT

Some of the biggest names in entertainment and sports are lending their star power to a good cause .

In recognition of World Health Day on April 7, superstars like Celine Dion, the Jonas Brothers, Robin Thicke, Little Big Town, as well as olympians Laurie Hernandez and Apolo Ohno, teamed up to spread the word about the David Clark Cause’s Call For Code campaign.

The initiative — which aims to create a coalition of business leaders, celebrities, scientists, activists and political figures with a goal of addressing social issues through the advancement of technology — turned its attention on the scourge of natural disasters, and those who are impacted by them across the globe.

These entertainment luminaries used their voices to spread the message of the Call For Code campaign, raising the profile of the initiative and increasing its potential impact on programmers, coders and tech designers the world over.

In partnership with IBM, the David Clark Cause and the Call For Code campaign will continue this year’s initiative through October, when it culminates with the 2nd Annual Call for Code Global Prize.

The coveted prize will be presented — along with $200,000 — to the team of developers who are able to create “the most innovative software solution to help people in need,” according to a statement released by the campaign.

Largest Engagement of Developers in History, with 156 Nations Represented, Culminates with ‘Call for Code Global Prize’

Tue, 30 Oct 2018 19:17:00 GMT

The intersection of tech, humanitarian aid and celebrity voices combine in this unique initiative

A Global Code Challenge to help mitigate suffering caused by natural disasters culminates with the presentation of the 2018 Call for Code Global Prize to “Project OWL” during a global broadcast from San Francisco to promote United Nations Human Rights and The American Red Cross

SAN FRANCISCO , Oct. 30, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — With the global reach and vision of Call for Code Creator David Clark Cause, Founding Partner IBM, and Charitable Partners United Nation Human Rights and The American Red Cross, the largest engagement of developers in history culminated with the Call for Code Global Prize winners and finalists being celebrated last night during a gala event globally broadcast from The Regency Ballroom in San Francisco.

Team Owl flanked by Call for Code creator David Clark and Bob Lord, IBM Chief Digital Officer

“Project OWL,” a team of five developers ( Bryan Knouse , Magus Pereira, Nicholas Feuer , Charlie Evans , and Taraqur Rahman) from Greenville, NC and New York, NY was named the Call for Code Global Prize recipients for 2018.

Knowing that people suffer when communications are destroyed when natural disasters strike, Project OWL is an innovative software/hardware solution that includes an offline communication infrastructure, providing first responders with a simple experience for managing all aspects of disaster response. It taps into data from a growing list of APIs and open data sets, including The Weather Company, The American Red Cross and FEMA. Civilians on the mobile ad-hoc “clusterduck” network – an offline communications infrastructure created by physical, Wi-Fi-enabled devices dispersed in clusters – can also send information about a victim’s situation, location, and needs.

Referred to as “The Noble Prize for Developers,” the Call for Code Global Prize- winning team receives:

Additional gravitas for the award was provided as the recipients were selected by an eminent Call for Code jury that included: President Bill Clinton ; Kate Gilmore , United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights; Jim Zemlin , Executive Director, The Linux Foundation; Deborah Dugan , the CEO of (RED); Dr. Irwin Redlener , Executive Director National Center for Disaster Preparedness at the Earth Institute of Columbia University ; and Grace Kim , Design and Research Lead at Twitter.

The Call for Code Global Prize Celebration was livestreamed from The Regency Ballroom in San Francisco , honoring the accomplishments, contributions and the collective effort of over a hundred thousand developers from across the globe. The Call for Code Global Challenge saw submissions from over 156 nations, and over 300 events hosted in locations that included but not limited to: Amsterdam , Bengaluru, Berlin , Delhi , Dubai , London , Paris , Sao Paulo , Kerala, Bayamón ( Puerto Rico ), Tel Aviv , New York and San Francisco.

Last night, The Call for Code Global Prize Celebration emphasized the critical need for better natural disaster preparation and relief efforts and the crucial role developers will play by creating life-saving technology. Highlights of the night included inspiring speeches and presentations from host Kait Parker , Meteorologist and Science Reporter at The Weather Company as well as Geo Blackshire , Deputy Fire Chief – City of Palo Alto ; Laurent Sauveur , Director, United Nations Human Rights; Joma, Developer Evangelist; and Subalehka, Communications and Policy Lead, Project Lantern. The night also included special messages from Amber Heard , actor and United Nations Human Rights Champion as well as Chelsea Clinton , Vice Chair of the Clinton Foundation. The award segment of the event culminated with the presentation of the Call for Code Global Prize to team Project Owl.

Following the award segment there was a special musical performance by the critically acclaimed band Local Natives , which is comprised of Taylor Rice , Kelcey Ayer , Ryan Hahn , Matt Frazier and Nik Ewing. Two hit singles — “The Only Heirs” and “I Saw You Close Your Eyes” — followed the Los Angeles band’s 2016 full-length Sunlit Youth , which earned praise from outlets including NPR, The FADER, Entertainment Weekly, NYLON, NY Mag’s Vulture, and many more, in addition to performances on The Late Late Show with James Corden and Conan . Local Natives also completed a world tour following festivals plays that included Coachella , Primavera Sound, Hangout Festival, Governor’s Ball, and others. “As one of my favorite bands that I respect for their musical talent and social activism, I’m grateful Local Natives came out to rock the house for Call for Code and its charitable beneficiaries United Nations Human Rights and The American Red Cross,” said Call for Code creator David Clark.

Call for Code creator David Clark displays the Call for Code Global Prize

“ Call for Code was created as a global platform to enable and inspire the 22 million developers around the world to create software solutions to solve some of the toughest social challenges we face,” said creator David Clark. “We’re overwhelmed by the response this inaugural year, as Call for Code has now become an open source movement that will continue to build and galvanize the tech industry for years to come. We’re proud of our Founding Partner IBM for having the vision, ability and reach to help roll out Call for Code on a global level and for their five-year 30-million dollar commitment to continue supporting this initiative so it continues to inspire and empower developers to be the change agents they really are.”

“Throughout its history, IBM has believed in the ingenuity of curious people to improve humanity with forward-thinking technology. Moreover, from driving collaboration on Linux and Java to Kubernetes and Hyperledger, IBM has strongly believed in the importance of working openly so that everyone can benefit from the best ideas,” said IBM Chief Digital Officer Bob Lord. “Today, with the ability to safely process data at scale using sophisticated tools like AI, cloud, blockchain, and IoT, developers are unleashing the power of IBM’s open code to effect change faster, in more places, and in more meaningful ways than ever before.”

Since Call for Code was announced by IBM Chairman, President and CEO Ginni Rometty this past May in Paris at VivaTech, Call for Code has gathered an unprecedented coalition of sponsors, affiliates, universities, supporters and celebrities. Select coalition members include:

How Your Life May Be Saved When the Next Natural Disaster Strikes

Tue, 16 Oct 2018 13:00:00 GMT

An inmate firefighter pauses during a firing operation as the Carr fire continues to burn in Redding, California on July 27, 2018. – One person has died and at least two others have been injured as wind-whipped flames tore through the region.

The world witnessed a slew of natural disasters over the course of 2018 — from an earthquake and tsunami that devastated Indonesia, a series of massive wildfires that burned large portions of California , to a record-breaking hurricane that destroyed many towns along Florida’s Gulf Coast at the start of October.

While it may be difficult to predict when many of these disasters will occur, one thing we can do is prepare for them the best we can, and that’s why a new initiative has called on engineers to create technology that will help save lives during the next large-scale emergency.

The program, called Call for Code , asked engineers to submit working ideas that may become pivotal tools for emergency preparedness and relief. Essentially, they want to “ outthink ” natural disasters.

“We’ve had literally hundreds of thousands of developers across the world submitting code,” Angel Diaz, Vice President of Developer Technology, Open Source & Advocacy at IBM — who helped to organize the event along with its creator, entrepreneur David Clark , and a collection of other companies — tells PEOPLE.

Whichever group earns the grand prize will get $200,000 placed toward having their idea turned into reality.

Residents embrace in front of an apartment building after Hurricane Michael hit in Panama City, Florida, U.S., on Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2018. Hurricane Michael became the strongest storm to hit the U.S. mainland since 1992, and one of the four most intense in history, with winds that reached 155 miles per hour as it made landfall in Florida.

Thousands of entries were sent in, with many unique ideas. One team from Puerto Rico came up with a design that would use a series of symbols that residents could use to alert an A.I.-powered drone to what they needed (for example, water, food, medical attention). That drone would relay the information to emergency services. They came up with the project after Hurricane Maria devastated the island last year.

Another plan saw a group from New York create a program that would scan social media for the keywords people were using in relation to their location. The application would pick up on these words (like “food” or “water”) and be able to distinguish groups of people who were in need of relevant supplies. This would be useful for people who are trapped in their homes due to flooding or debris-filled roadways.

The efforts of these engineers who have participated in Call for Code aren’t spurred on by a desire to become the next Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk. In fact, the top 10 projects will have their code made open source, Diaz says — meaning it will be made public so that any coder who has an idea on how to improve upon it can do so, free of charge.

Call for Code asks developers worldwide to collaborate on solutions to save lives

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 00:03:51 GMT

The O’Reilly Media Podcast: Daniel Krook, IBM developer advocate, on the Call for Code Global Initiative at IBM.

Disasters hit unexpectedly and cause life-threatening issues across the world. Large groups of people are left without water, electricity, or other basic systems that sustain life. In an effort to help the communities of the world be better prepared to handle these tough situations, David Clark Cause launched Call for Code along with IBM as the founding partner. Call for Code is a worldwide, multi-year initiative that challenges developers to solve pressing problems with sustainable software solutions.

The Call for Code Challenge in 2018 is a competition that rewards participants who come up with the applications that make the greatest impact.

In this episode of the O’Reilly Media Podcast, Rachel Roumeliotis, VP of content strategy at O’Reilly, sat down with Daniel Krook, IBM developer advocate. They discussed how developers across industries can participate in the Call for Codeinitiative, the benefits of the program, support from its charitable partners—United Nations Human Rights and the American Red Cross—and the positive impacts IBM hopes to achieve by investing in Call for Code.

The Call for Code Challenge this year is a competition open to developers across the globe set up in teams of one to five people. The program was launched in June, and it continues to encourage collaboration and community building through local events, meetups, and conferences where people can get together and discuss their goals and aspirations for technology that can save lives.

At events around the world, developers have built applications for local natural disaster challenges that can be applied worldwide. For example, at a recent Call for Code hackathon in Puerto Rico, the local event winner built a solution based on his experience after Hurricane Maria that can be easily deployed in other areas around the globe.

To give participants a starting point, IBM developer advocates have put together sample applications and full-scale solutions called “code patterns.” They’ve identified six areas where technology can make a real difference in disaster preparedness: blockchain, artificial intelligence, logistics, data science, sensor data processing, and visual recognition. See the IBM Code Patterns site for more information.

There are a number of additional resources available to developers to help guide their thoughts and approaches. They can look to:

IBM’s official Call for Code page for developers
Tech talks showing how the code patterns work and interviews with disaster domain experts
Learn about the targets and priorities defined by the United Nations Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction
Register for the 2018 developer challenge at the Call for Code site
Find out more about the Call for Code Global Initiative on the Call for Code website

In addition to helping the world and saving lives, there are prizes for the top winners of the contents: $200,000 for the grand prize, $25,000 for two semi-finalists, $10,000 for the fourth and fifth place finalists, plus open source community support from The Linux Foundation and assistance from the IBM Corporate Service Corps to deploy the solution on the ground in the areas of greatest need.

The winning team also has the opportunity to pitch their solution to New Enterprises Associates (NEA) for evaluation and feedback, so Call for Code can be a life-changing prospect for the developers themselves.

It’s not just about winning the competition. The best ideas will be developed and deployed in communities, having a long-lasting impact in the world’s continuing efforts to improving disaster preparedness and recovery.

CNCF joins Call for Code

Mon, 27 Aug 2018 12:11:47 GMT

The CNCF, the Linux Foundation, and the entire open source movement would be nothing without community. The ability to come together and foster an ecosystem, develop new, ground-breaking technology, and accelerate innovation is truly inspiring. It’s a testament to the commitment and desire to look beyond their immediate needs and consider what is best for the community at-large (all while balancing the needs and responsibilities of their respective companies).

It is with this same spirit of togetherness and community that CNCF lends its support to Call for Code.

There is so much more we can do than develop platforms for running business applications, or helping businesses to grow. Developers have the power to save lives. Call for Code challenges developers to create sustainable software solutions that address natural disasters. Developers can use the technology to build for and solve complex global problems that impact societies around the world. Call for Code aims to harness the energy, creativity, and collaborative aspects of our work in open source, proving that we can develop solutions to humanity’s greatest problems.

CNCF joins IBM, David Clark Cause, the Linux Foundation, United Nations Human Rights Office and The American Red Cross in making Call for Code a reality. The contest, which awards $200,000 to the winner, is an opportunity to rally developers around a common cause and have a lasting impact. Last year was one of the worst years on record for natural disasters, and the right technology can mitigate the loss of life and property damage.

I encourage you to register for the challenge at CallforCode.org , but there are a few more ways that you can get involved immediately:

Commit to the cause: Share the message with your followers, your company, your fellow developers, and express your support via social media. You can start by retweeting one of our recent posts:
Push for change: Interested in bringing Call for Code to your company in a more formal way? Run a Call for Code Day at your company by signing up here: https://callforcode.org/why-push/
Answer the call: Form a team, join a team, or build a solution solo. Register for Call for Code at CallforCode.org and start building today.

Since 2000, natural disasters have directly affected 2.5 billion people, with $1.5 trillion in economic impact since 2003. And over the last 30 years, flooding is up over 240%. As developers, we can help people be more prepared, help them during a natural disaster, and help them recover afterward. We can make communities more resilient together.

Call for Code judges include iconic developers like Linus Torvalds, plus leaders from the United Nations Human Rights Office and the National Center for Disaster Preparedness. The winning team and two semifinalists will receive support from The Linux Foundation to host their submission as an open source project and build a community around it, ensuring that it is deployable around the world in the areas of greatest need.

Each one of us wields great power as a developer, but together, we’re even stronger. I encourage you to visit callforcode.org today and show the world that developers-and the technology they create-can save lives.

Call for Code campaign tops Social Voice of 920 Million People in support of Natural Disaster Preparedness & Relief

Mon, 20 Aug 2018 19:44:00 GMT

On World Humanitarian Day, Celebrities that include Ellen DeGeneres, Justin Bieber, Trevor Noah, Pierce Brosnan, Kesha, Ryan Seacrest, Alyssa Milano, Joe Jonas, Luke Bryan, Trisha Yearwood, Marcia Gay Harden, Gisele Bundchen, Jared Leto, Cyndi Lauper, Nicole Scherzinger , and more, lent their social voices to support United Nations Human Rights, the American Red Cross and First Responders

LOS ANGELES, CA (August 20, 2018): The Call for Code Global Initiative , created by leading philanthropic producer David Clark, CEO of David Clark Cause and powered by multinational technology company and Founding Partner IBM, is the largest and most ambitious effort to create acoalition of leading NGOs; celebrities; brands; and startup, academic and enterprise developers to help solve pressing social challenges with advanced technology and software solutions. This year’s focus is disaster preparedness and relief.

During a keynote address in May at the VivaTech Conference in Paris, IBM Chairman, President and CEO Ginni Romettycalled on the technology industry to help build a better future, committing IBM technology and $30 million dollars over five years in the annual Call for Code Global Initiative. Its goal is to unite the world’s developers and tap into data and AI, blockchain, cloud and IoT technologies to address societal issues.

To show support of the Initiative and its charitable partners, to include the United Nations Human Rights and the American Red Cross, celebrities, dignitaries and social advocates lent their powerful voices to support the brave efforts of humanitarians by participating in the #CallforCode global social campaign onWorld Humanitarian Day, August 19. Recognized as an official UN observance supported by the 193 member states of the United Nations, World Humanitarian Day is devoted to the humanitarian personnel who come to the aid of people in need.

“In addition to the amazing response we’ve received from the developer and tech communities, we’re also grateful for the support we’re continuing to receive from celebrities,” said Call for Code creator David Clark . “In support of Call for Code, the total social voice that our celebrity supporters posted out to their followers and fans on World Humanitarian Day topped 908 million people, which is truly remarkable.”

Call for Code supporters include Oscar®, Emmy®, Tony® and GRAMMY® Award winners. Celebrities include: Ellen DeGeneres, Justin Bieber, Trevor Noah, Pierce Brosnan, Kesha, Ryan Seacrest, Jared Leto, Billy Ray Cyrus, Noah Cyrus, Luke Bryan, Joe Jonas, Nicole Scherzinger, Yolanda Adams, Cyndi Lauper, Aloe Blacc, Robin Thicke, Marcia Gay Harden, Pentatonix, Gisele Bundchen, Alyssa Milano, Cody Simpson, Jane Seymour, Lucy Hale, Logan Henderson, Sasha Pieterse, Chayanne, Alessandra Ambrosio, Troy Vincent, Elizabeth Rodriguez, Ron Livingston, Andrea Bowen, Dimitri Vegas, Easton Corbin, Eric Paslay, Raja Kumari, Sheléaand White Panda. The social voice is the total Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram followers of participating celebrities, and the public at large.

“As Founding Partner of Call for Code, we are allowing technologists to access IBM technologies – that have been used by large enterprises and companies to solve their most pressing business challenges – tohelp save lives and solve societal problems,” said Bob Lord IBM chief digital officer . “We are overwhelmed with excitement about the projects we are seeing in development and the social media support we are receiving from celebrities, academia and developers in effort to improve our world.”

Since inception of the global challenge, there have been more than 300 events in 50 cities around the world – including an IBM-hosted virtual hack comprised of 5,000 participants – in addition to Call for Code days across 13 IBM Development Labs in eight different countries to engage developers to create software solutions addressing challenges around natural disasters. Submissions close on September 28, and all of this activity will culminate on October 29, when the Call for Codebenefit concert will be live-streamed from the Regency Ballroom in San Francisco. During the all-star concert benefiting the United Nations Human Rights and the American Red Cross, the prestigious Call for Code Global Prize will be presented to the team who creates the most innovative and sustainable solution related to natural disasters.

A charitable partner of Call for Code is United Nations Human Rights, which promotes a human rights-based approach to humanitarian action, by securing the participation of affected groups in preparedness, response and recovery efforts, and bringing attention to the most excluded and marginalized populations.

“Technology today has the potential to unleash large-scale social change. We are excited to be a part of Call for Code as it harnesses the time and talent of passionate developers around the world who seek to create software solutions to address social issues and protect the rights of the most vulnerable,” said Laurent Sauveur , head of external relations of the United Nations Human Rights Office .

Call for Code also integrates the American Red Cross’ focus on new ways to deliver support to disaster victims – especially important with 2017 ranked as one of the worst years on record for catastrophic events, including fires, floods, earthquakes and storms.

“Responding to large-scale natural disasters is a team effort, and we are excited to leverage skills and insights from the tech industry to address global challenges,” said Brad Keiserman, vice president of Disaster Cycle Services at the American Red Cross. “Partnerships and technology like this allow for smarter and faster response efforts, which are critical to help more people in need more quickly and with greater efficiency.”

Justin Bieber, Ellen DeGeneres, Kesha & More Stars to Support World Humanitarian Day

Thu, 16 Aug 2018 19:53:00 GMT

It’s good to give back.

This Sunday, Aug. 19 marks World Humanitarian Day and David Clark Cause, along with founding partner IBM, have enlisted the help of celebrities like Justin Bieber, Pierce Brosnan, Trevor Noah, Ryan Seacrest, Alyssa Milano, Cody Simpson, Logan Henderson, Cyndi Lauper, Marcia Gay Harden, Kesha, Pentatonix and many others to l end their social voices to support United Nations Human Rights, the American Red Cross and First Responders give back in a special way.

To show support, Hollywood’s finest, as well as dignitaries and social advocates are helping spread the word to support the brave efforts of humanitarians by participating in the #CallforCode global social campaign, which helps people prepare for and recover from natural disasters.

Recognized as an official U.N. observance supported by the 193 member states of the United Nations, Aug. 19 is devoted to the humanitarian personnel who come to the aid of people in need. As of now, the combined social voice is over 610 million strong and growing.

So be on the lookout on Aug. 19 for more on #CallforCode and ways that you can support World Humanitarian Day.

Join Forces Against Natural Disasters with the Call for Code

Fri, 06 Jul 2018 16:11:00 GMT

The goal of Call For Code is to develop technology solutions that significantly improve disaster preparedness and benefit the initiative’s charitable partners: the United Nations Human Rights Office and the American Red Cross.

The Call for Code initiative aims to harness the collective power of the global open source developer community against the growing threat of natural disasters. According to IBM, “the goal is to develop technology solutions that significantly improve disaster preparedness, provide relief from devastation caused by fires, floods, hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes, and benefit Call for Code’s charitable partners — the United Nations Human Rights Office and the American Red Cross.”

In a recent webcast — How 22M Developers Take on Disaster Preparedness — Mary Glackin, SVP of Science & Forecast at The Weather Company and IBM Business, spoke with representatives from participating organizations about the initiative and some of the specific goals it aims to achieve.

The Call for Code is “encouraging the global community of developers to stand up for the rights of others,” said Laurent Sauveur, Chief of External Relations, UN Human Rights.

We invite you to amplify the initiative and join the call. You can learn more about the Call for Code and watch the complete webcast here: http://ibm.biz/BdYxHZ .

IBM Pledges $30 Million for Techies to Fight Natural Disasters

Wed, 30 May 2018 12:07:00 GMT

IBM is committing $30 million over five years to a global initiative aimed at addressing social challenges, like natural disaster relief, the company said.

The donation will, in part, fund an annual contest called “Call for Code” in which developers can win up to $200,000 for creating tools that solve problems involving humanitarian crises. This year, the competition seeks to get engineers building software that can help people respond to, or prepare for, environmental catastrophes.

IBM said it would award a first-place team introductions to venture capitalists, tech support, and potential corporate backing, for designing aid-related tech. Examples of possible prototypes include apps that track weather patterns or supplies to help improve disaster preparedness, or visual recognition tech that can help reunite displaced families in the aftermath of a calamity.

“We cannot attempt to prevent earthquakes from happening or prevent hurricanes from happening around the globe,” said Bob Lord, IBM’s chief digital officer, who dropped by Fortune’s offices to discuss the new program. “But what we can do is unleash our tools and other tools so developers can help geographic regions get prepared for those natural disasters that happen.”

IBM CEO Ginny Rommetty unveiled the philanthropic project at the VivaTech Conference in Paris last week. Submissions are open between now and Aug. 31, 2018, and winners are set to be selected in the fall.

IBM is partnering with Red Cross, the United Nations’ Human Rights Office, and the Linux Foundation, on the effort. The collaboration “is an excellent opportunity to explore how technology can play a role in addressing the needs of the most vulnerable populations,” said Laurent Sauveur, head of external relations of the United Nations Human Rights Office, in a statement.

IBM gets something out of the program, too. Aside from good will, the competition is designed to motivate developers to use IBM’s technologies, including Watson AI, IBM Blockchain, and IBM Cloud.

“We think by giving access to our tools we’re really going to help people and save communities and save lives,” Lord said. “We hope that, as we evolve the program year after year, that as society is dealing with problems, we’re going to help to tackle that with our cool technology.”

IBM to give $200,000 award for finding a solution to natural disaster relief

Mon, 28 May 2018 21:46:00 GMT

IBM is holding a competition to decide which team will come up with the best solution for natural disaster relief.

IBM is calling developers to create a solution for natural disaster relief. The natural disaster could be of many types such as Earthquake, Explosion, Flood, Hurricane, Fire Evacuation, or tornado. The winning team will get an award of $200,000 from IBM to make a prototype and reality and get introduced to venture capitalists. The company’s President and CEO Ginni Rometty on 24th May at the VivaTech Conference 2018 in Paris announced Call for Code, a global initiative that calls on developers to build technology that can be used for natural disaster relief.

Bob Lord, IBM chief digital officer, said in a statement, “At IBM, we harness the power of technologies like AI, blockchain, IoT and cloud to address some of the biggest opportunities and challenges in business, Now, with Call for Code, we are calling on all developers to join us and use these same leading-edge technologies to help people, their communities, and society.”

IBM is currently working with the United Nations Human Rights Office and the American Red Cross pledges to give $30 million over five years to the program. The money will go toward developer tools, technologies, free code and training with experts. Developers can already access IBM resources about data and AI, the blockchain, cloud and IoT technologies.

IBM pledges $30M, calls for coders to join global effort combating natural disasters

Thu, 24 May 2018 21:41:00 GMT

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – IBM is calling on the global public and private sectors, including the United Nations and the Linux Foundation, to unite in finding ways of using advanced technology as a means of combating natural disasters as well as humanitarian issues.

Ginni Rometty, the chair and CEO of IBM, pledged $30 million over five years to support the effort through the Call for Code Global Initiative, which includes companies from startups to large as well as academic institutions. She announced the commitment at a technology conference in Paris the day after she disclosed IBM would be adding some 1,800 jobs in France that will focus on advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing and Internet of Things.

Since the initiative announcement was global in nature, no specific applications or efforts were disclosed that would impact IBM operations in RTP, a company spokesperson said. The Triangle campus is a site where IBM does conduct considerable Artificial Intelligence work through its Watson program.

“At IBM, we harness the power of technologies like AI, blockchain, IoT and cloud to address some of the biggest opportunities and challenges in business,” said Bob Lord, IBM chief digital officer, in the Call for Code announcement. “Now, with Call for Code, we are calling on all developers to join us and use these same leading edge technologies to help people, their communities and society.”

The effort also includes a call for coders to contribute to the project.

How to Join the Call for Code

Developers can register today at Callforcode.org.
Projects can be submitted by individuals – or teams of up to five people – between June 18, 2018 and August 31, 2018.
30 semi-finalists will be selected in September. A prominent jury, including some of the most iconic technologists in the world, will choose the winning solution from three finalists.
The winner will be announced in October 2018 during a live-streamed concert and award event coordinated by David Clark Cause.

‘HUMAN RIGHTS-BASED APPROACH’

IBM says it is joining the UN and the relief organization David Clark Cause in seeking what the tech giant calls a “human rights-based approach to humanitarian action.”

The organizations and the American Red Cross also are seeking new ways to utilizing technology in bringing relief to people hit by natural disasters.

“Technology can be a powerful force to advance human rights and build more equitable societies. Call for Code is an excellent opportunity to explore how technology can play a role in addressing the needs of the most vulnerable populations and those who are at risk of having their human rights violated in the context of a humanitarian crisis,” said Laurent Sauveur, head of external relations of the United Nations Human Rights Office.

IBM said its $30 million commitment would include software tool development, additional technology research, and code training that would be free of charge. It will work with the Clark organization to put on educational events and hackathons in some 50 cities worldwide.

The company also said it would continue to support code development through the Linux Foundation.

“Winning submissions need a strong ecosystem to ensure that they will flourish and continue to be deployed across the globe long after the competition ends. That’s where The Linux Foundation is proud to step in and help equip open-source projects with the tools they need to accelerate adoption,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director of The Linux Foundation.

IBM Leads ‘Call for Code’ to Use Cloud, Data, AI, Blockchain for Natural Disaster Relief

Thu, 24 May 2018 10:12:00 GMT

$30 million, 5-year IBM investment unites developers to solve pressing social issues; benefits UN Human Rights Office and Red Cross in partnership with Linux Foundation and creator David Clark Cause

PARIS , May 24, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — VIVA TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE — IBM (NYSE: IBM ) and partners today launched the Call for Code Global Initiative, the largest and most ambitious effort to bring startup, academic and enterprise developers together to solve one of the most pressing societal issues of our time: preventing, responding to and recovering from natural disasters.

During a keynote address at the VivaTech Conference in Paris , IBM Chairman, President and CEO Ginni Rometty called on the technology industry to help build a better future, committing IBM technology and $30 million USD over five years in the annual Call for Code Global Initiative. Its goal is to unite the world’s developers and tap into data and AI, blockchain, cloud and IoT technologies to address social challenges.

“At IBM, we harness the power of technologies like AI, blockchain, IoT and cloud to address some of the biggest opportunities and challenges in business,” said Bob Lord , IBM chief digital officer. “Now, with Call for Code, we are calling on all developers to join us and use these same leading edge technologies to help people, their communities and society.”

Through Call for Code, IBM and David Clark Cause are joining forces with the United Nations Human Rights Office and its human rights-based approach to humanitarian action, which focuses on securing the participation of affected groups in preparedness, response and recovery efforts, and bringing attention to the most excluded and marginalized populations.

“Technology can be a powerful force to advance human rights and build more equitable societies. Call for Code is an excellent opportunity to explore how technology can play a role in addressing the needs of the most vulnerable populations and those who are at risk of having their human rights violated in the context of a humanitarian crisis,” said Laurent Sauveur , head of external relations of the United Nations Human Rights Office.

Call for Code also integrates the American Red Cross’ focus on new ways to bring support to disaster victims – especially important with 2017 ranked as one of the worst years on record for catastrophic events, including fires, floods, earthquakes and storms.

“Responding to large-scale national and international disasters is a team effort, and we are excited to leverage skills and insights from the tech industry to address global challenges,” said Brad Kieserman , vice president of Disaster Cycle Services at the American Red Cross. “Partnerships and technology like this allow for smarter and faster response efforts, which are critical to help those in need more quickly and efficiently.”

Call for Code invites developers to create new applications to help communities and people better prepare for natural disasters. For example, developers may create an app that uses weather data and supply chain information to alert pharmacies to increase supplies of medicine, bottled water and other items based on predicted weather-related disruption. Or it could be an app that predicts when and where the disaster will be most severe, so emergency crews can be dispatched ahead of time in proper numbers to treat those in need.

IBM’s $30 million investment over five years will fund access to developer tools, technologies, free code and training with experts. The winning team will receive a financial prize, yet, perhaps more rewarding, they will have access to long-term support to help move their idea from prototype to real-world application. This includes ongoing developer support through IBM’s partnership with the Linux Foundation.

In addition to development support, the winning team can join one of IBM’s Corporate Service Corps (CSC) teams to apply their idea to a community in need. IBM CSC teams are multi-disciplinary IBM experts who spend four to six weeks in underserved communities around the world to apply technology to local issues and opportunities.

Call for Code Global Initiative

IBM is the founding member of the Call for Code Global Initiative, which was created by David Clark , a renowned leader in cause-related initiatives. David Clark’s work includes iconic people and humanitarian organizations, such as President Nelson Mandela , Muhammad Ali , Prince, the United Nations, Amnesty International, and The Anne Frank Center.

“The Call for Code Global Initiative was created to realize the full potential of developers, as they play a critical role in driving innovation that can shape and save lives. When these change agents are inspired to use their unique skills to help people in need, they do,” said David Clark , founder, David Clark Cause. “There could not be a more significant founding partner for this important global initiative than IBM, and I’m both privileged and honored they have answered the call.”

GRAMMY-nominated singer and human rights advocate Andra Day , whose 2015 global smash hit song “Rise Up” quickly became the voice for the voiceless, is leading a celebrity coalition supporting the Call for Code Global Initiative.

“I admire the mission of Call for Code, and how it aims to create technology based solutions to help people in need,” said Day, whose causes align with the invaluable work of United Nations Human Rights and the American Red Cross, as the initial Call for Code addresses natural disaster preparedness and relief.

To raise awareness and interest in Call for Code, IBM is coordinating interactive educational events, hackathons and community support for developers around the world in more than 50 cities, including Amsterdam , Bengaluru, Berlin , Delhi , Dubai , London , New York , San Francisco , Sao Paulo and Tel Aviv.

How to Join the Call for Code

For more info visit CALL FOR CODE

righthererightnow

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Media Contact

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Call For Code 2022

Call For Code 2021 Winners

Join A Call For Code Project

IBM and David Clark Cause announce 2022 Call For Code Challenge

The grand prize winners will take home $200K and help change the world . ﻿

2022 Call for Code Global Challenge Urges Developers to Create Solutions that Accelerate Sustainability and Take On Climate Change

David Clark Cause, IBM, United Nations Human Rights, the Linux Foundation and IBM Ecosystem partners Arrow Electronics, EY, Ingram Micro, Intuit, New Relic and Persistent Systems to support Call for Code developers from 180 nations with open source-powered hybrid cloud and AI solutions

Call for Code selected as preferred innovation platform of Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Alliance, one of the largest public/private climate partnerships

Call for Code 2022 rallies developers to come up with climate change solutions

IBM Launches 2022 Call For Code Global Challenge

The 2022 Call for Code Global Challenge is officially underway.

IBM and David Clark Cause Crown Saaf Water Winner of 4th Annual Call for Code Global Challenge

Created to combat water quality-related deaths, the Saaf Water sensor and analytics platform for rural localities wins 2021 Call for Code Global Challenge

Technology using AI, Blockchain, and Cloud to verify, track, and reward waste removal in outdoor areas wins Call for Code University Edition prize

IBM, David Clark Cause Award Saaf Water Top Call for Code Prize

Winners of the 2021 Call for Code Global Challenge were announced Tuesday night in New York.

IBM announces Call for Code 2021 grand prize winner

IBM and David Clark Cause just announced Saaf Water as this year’s 2021 grand prize winner!

Samsung and IBM Announce Call for Code Challenge to Honor Everyday Heroes

Samsung and IBM continue to build upon long-standing strategic partnership with challenge for developers using Samsung and IBM technology

Call for Code: A Challenge at Global Level

A full year of competition

Judges

Bente’s Heroes, a Regional winner

IBM and startup Grillo seek to bring low-cost, early-warning earthquake detection devices to Puerto Rico

With the backing of the Clinton Global Initiative, the partners are calling on the open-source community to help the Caribbean island implement economically friendly EEW systems.

Quincy Jones, Barbra Streisand, Cher Align With United Nations’ ‘Call for Code’ Initiative

Carole King, Rod Stewart, Melissa Etheridge, Sia, Kesha also join call for developers to create solutions to climate change issues

Esri and IBM Team Up to Take on Climate Change with Call for Code

IBM Launches Fourth Annual Call for Code Global Challenge to Tackle Existential Threat of Climate Change

IBM fights climate change with ‘Call for Code’ global challenge

IBM Launches 2021 Call For Code Global Challenge

Kenya's Mbali Health wins $5000 IBM and David Clark Cause’s Call for Code Challenge

The grand prize winners will take home $200K and help change the world .