IBM and its partner David Clark Cause today announced the official commencement of the 2020 Call For Code Challenge. The annual contest will focus on climate change this year and begins accepting submissions on March 22.
Call For Code, returning for its third year, is a five year developers’ challenge issued by David Clark Cause, IBM, the Linux Foundation, and United Nations Human Rights. Each year the coalition issues a global challenge calling for solutions to some of the world’s largest problems.
Per an IBM press release:
Over 180,000 participants from 165 nations took part in Call for Code in 2019;t hey 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.
Last year’s grand-prize winner, Promoteo, received $200,000 and mentoring and development support from IBM for developing a device for emergency personnel to use during disaster-response that monitors air quality.
Mami Mizutori, Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General (SRSG) for Disaster Risk Reduction, said:
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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. 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.
We’ve covered the Call for Code challenge for the past two years, including our review of a recent documentary featuring the real life heroes who’ve participated in the past events. Check out some of our other pieces below:
- Meet the finalists for IBM’s $200K Call for Code competition
- IBM’s Call for Code Starter Kits are a perfect intro to coding and AI
- IBM’s Call For Code hackathon takes aim at California’s wildfire problem
- WiFi network made of rubber ducks could save lives during natural disasters
Good luck to all of this year’s entrants! Visit the Call for Code website here for more information.
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