IBM Call for Code 2020 calls for solutions to save Earth from climate change

IBM Call for Code 2020, a Global development Challenge, calls on developers to creates solutions for tackling global warming and climate change. Every year, we are facing more and more environmental issues due to climate change. Temperatures are rising, glaciers are melting, seasons are irregular. We are also facing severe water scarcity, flooding is happening at places where floods are previously unheard of. There is a clear and immediate need to provide solutions that can tackle climate change at a global scale. Winner will be awarded a grand prize of $200,000 along with long term open source project support opportunity from The Linux Foundation. What makes this worth is that you, as a developer, are going to contribute towards the ultimate goal of saving Earth for future generations.

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 2020 Call for Code Global Challenge asks the world’s developers to build solutions for COVID-19 and climate change. 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 31st of July 2020. There is not much time left in competition and if done right, you can be the one with the winners prize.

What is Call for Code and how does it benefit society?

Back in 2018, Call for Code was launched by David Clark Cause and IBM to find solutions that can bring positive change across the globe. Each year, the solutions that are created in Call for Code are designed around making Earth a better place to live. Till date, there were 300,000+ participants and 165 nations have contributed. A total for 800+ applications were submitted.

For developers, the biggest prize is the fact that you are bringing a change to the world and your solution is going to save millions of lives. Last year, the emphasis was on Climate change and this year there are two tracks, one for global pandemics (COVID-19) and one for climate change. There is a university track this year with prize money or $10000 USD and winning candidates will get opportunity to interview for potential role at IBM. The winning teams will also get support from The Linux Foundation.

Purpose and Objective for this campaign

IBM Call for Code 2020 has two tracks. One track is for Climate Change and the second one is to reduce the impact of global pandemics and make global communities safer from these raging diseases like COVID-19. The selected solutions will then be deployed in communities that need urgent assistance in tackling climate change.

How to participate?

Do note that final submission date for both tracks is 31st of July.

Step 1: Accept the challenge

Be clear on what you want to develop and map your solution to the real world issues. Go ahead and register here to get access to IBM Cloud. Once you register, you will start receiving updates that will help you gain new skills and accelerate development.

Step 2: Choose your track and build with open tech

Pick Climate Change track from here. You will get access to starter kits, code patterns, VoDs, documentation and additional resources from this page. Weeks before deadline, you will get a  livestream session where additional tips will be provided to finetune your solution.

Step 3: Find your squad

If you are looking for team mates or if you want to meet experts or ask queries and interact, IBM has opened Call for Code Slack channel to address your queries. IBM organizes virtual events and you can attend virtual events from here.

Step 4: Submit your solution

Do note that your solutions must be an open source project that can be deployed quickly and scale well. Please use public source code repo (eg: GitHub) to store your code. Public repos like GitHub also provide features like parallel development, branching, forking, version controlling so that you can always track your work and keep the changes clean.

Once you are ready to submit, please create a 3 minute demo video and upload that as well to public repository. You can get more details in this blog post.

Rules

1. It is mandatory to use one or more IBM Cloud services or IBM Systems. Developers can use sponsor or affiliate APIs and FOSS libraries.
2. Team can have maximum of five participants and minimum age is 18 years. Participant cannot be part of multiple teams.
3. Every participant must accept the 2020 Participation Agreement.
4. Applications must be built for 2020 competition, can use open source code and must be public.
5. Winning teams will have to go through code review process once all submissions are closed.

IBM technologies that can be used to build solutions

To know more about starter kits, resources that you can make use of to build solutions, head to this page. You can also find more resources about the IBM response to Call for Code, here. Please go through this submission checklist in detail before you submit your solution. Go through these helpful tips from Project OWL on building the right team. You can also dig into this massive technical content library.