Call for Code
Not your average hackathon
June 17, 2020
Categorized: Call for Code
Share this post:
Author: Rahul Soans, Developer Marketing Manager, IBM Australia
The Call for Code challenge is now in its third year. Initiated by David Clarke Cause in 2018 with IBM as a founding partner, the competition challenges innovators and problem solvers to tackle the biggest problems facing humanity.
The 2020 Call For Code challenge is being expanded to take on COVID-19 as well as climate change. Although the ethos of the competition is that open-source technology can help fight the impacts of COVID-19 and climate change – you don’t have to be a developer to assist.
As Bob Lord, IBM’s Senior Vice President, Cognitive Applications, Blockchain and Ecosystems, has said “The winning solutions were the ones that had a diversity of thought. They were the ones where the data scientist paired with the philosophy major. Where the nurse and firefighters paired with developers.”
The 2019 winners of Call For Code, Prometeo, are a team from Spain. They built an AI-based platform to monitor and act on firefighter health and safety in real-time. Though the solution is technologically elegant, the idea came from a (non-techie) firefighter. In his extensive career, Joan Harrera had suffered headaches and breathing problems in the line of duty. And also, tragically, the loss of colleagues. It was his personal experience that was the genesis of Prometeo.
Yes, the Call for Code challenge looks for technology solutions. But they are solutions to very human problems. Your ideas to help halt and reverse the impact of climate change and COVID-19 could see you become a Grand prize winner and win USD 200,000 and:
You can enter the global competition here.
How IBM is helping to skill South Australian students for the jobs of the future
By Jade Moffat Herman, Corporate Social Responsibility Lead, IBM A/NZ After almost seven years at IBM Australia and New Zealand, you don’t need to tell me how rewarding a career in technology can be. In my role as Corporate Social Responsibility Lead, I am honoured to work closely with leading public sector, not-for-profit and educational […]
Four Australian teams lead the 2021 Call for Code to help combat climate change
By Alison Haire, Lead Developer Advocate, Hybrid Cloud Build Team Solving global challenges like climate change may seem never-ending, but we can draw inspiration and hope from communities that are making a difference. The open-source movement is one such community, involving hundreds of thousands of individuals and organisations around the world. Together, they have created […]
How to avoid data breaches while accelerating your digital transformation
Author: Chris Hockings, Chief Technology Officer (Cyber Security), IBM Australia and New Zealand As the pandemic accelerated your need for digital transformation, you needed to act. And fast. And you were not alone. But new findings from the recent IBM-Ponemon Institute Cost of a Data Breach Report 2021 suggest that an organisation’s pace of change […]