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IBM Call for Code 2019 is calling you now to Save the World

AmarendraJuly 9, 2019

0 4 minutes read

Call for Code, launched by David Clark Cause and IBM in 2018 is Global Challenge that pulls developers to create solutions to drive positive and long-lasting change across the world. This years objective is to create solutions that significantly improve our preparedness for natural disasters and accelerate relief when natural disaster occurs. The 2019 Call for Code calls on developers to create practical, effective, and high-quality applications based on cloud, data, and artificial intelligence that can have both an immediate and lasting impact. Winner will be awarded a grand prize of $200,000 along with long term open source project support opportunity from The Linux Foundation. Please do hurry as the competition ends on 29th of July 2019. There is not much time left in competition and if done right, you can be the one with the winners prize.

Since 2000, more than 2.5 billion humans were directly effected by these natural disasters and since 2003, economic impact of these disasters is calculated to be around $1.5 trillion. I am from coastal Andhra region (India) and we face cyclones/floods every year, some of these are of a truly massive scale. Such natural disasters often wreck havoc (along with earthquakes, tsunamis etc) on everything that gets in the way. How many lives we save during such calamities depend on how fast relief volunteers and relief material reaches these effected areas.

Some of the biggest problems during such calamities are getting help, finding resources, organizing relief activities, finding alternate routes to reach remote submerged (floods/cyclone) or devastated regions (earthquakes). One of the priorities during relief is to prevent viral and bacterial infections by delivering preventive medicine and clearing up carcasses.

In current world dominated by smartphones and social media, having innovative applications that can help Red Cross and other disaster relief teams work faster and get help from smartphone users across globe is essential. Being a developer, you can think of innovative application that can help thousands and millions by doing something as simple as organizing relief material collection or finding list of registered volunteers at the press of a button and track their movement.

More than this, we also will benefit a long from revolutionary solutions that can predict and warn us about impending natural disasters. Unlike cyclones and floods, it is very hard to predict earthquakes, tsunamis and flash floods. Such solution can save hundreds and thousands of lives. If you have a brilliant idea, please do join Call for Code and help all those who are in constant danger of natural calamities.

IBM Technologies that you can make use of

You can make use of six key technologies to developer your applications and solutions. IBM is providing a catalog of cloud, AI and data services for participants to use to build their applications. You can find the catalog from this IBM Cloud page. The six key technologies that developers can make use are:

Artificial Intelligence.
Blockchain.
Data Science.
Internet of Things.
Machine Learning.
Traffic & Weather.

You can find more details on these technologies from here.

Code Patterns that you can use

IBM has also made available huge list of code patterns that you can readily use to build your application. The source code for nearly 31 code patterns are available on GitHub. For example, here is a code pattern to create a mobile application that can forecast weather and here is the relevant GitHub repository that has the source code. You can find full list of code patterns from this page.

Project #CallForCode 2019 Details

Focus:

Health and well-being in the wake of natural disasters.

How does it work?

Teams are created at the discretion of individual participants with a team being no more than five individuals. Options to find other team members are available through the IBM Coder community.

Spread the word

You can spread the word on social networks about Call for Code competition. Please use #CallforCode, #AnswerTheCall hashtags and do not forget to tag @CallforCode, @ibm_in, @smalathi, @nsobti25 Twitter handles (if you are posting on Twitter).

To enter the 2019 Call for Code competition a team leader requires the following information to submit their solution:

Submission name- The name for the solution or team in five words or less.
Short description- Describe the team’s solution in 10 words or less.
Long description- Describe the solution in more detail. Give a more detailed description of what you’re building, what problem will it solve, and why it matters in less than 500 words.
Solution roadmap- How mature is the submission and where do you intend to take it from here?
Link to GitHub or another source code repository such as GitLab or Box. The team can provide additional description and diagrams here. Hint: Review the judging criteria and rules: 2019 Call for Code Global Challenge.
Link to a three-minute demo video- Record a demo of your project, upload it to YouTube or Vimeo and share the URL.
List of IBM Cloud Services or IBM Systems used in the solution- Join the Challenge Community to get an IBM Cloud account.
Email addresses of up to four additional team members. Each will need to accept the Participation Agreement. An individual can only be part of one team of up to 5 members, and one team can only submit one application.

The team leader who submitted the solution will receive an email confirming the submission details. If a team need to update or replace the submission, please create a new submission. The latest submission from the submitter email address before the July 29, 2019 deadline will be considered the final entry.