The CallForCode 2020 Challenge based on Climate Change

Technology has always made our lives better. What we enjoy today as a utility was an outcome of talent and hard work of great scientists, engineers, etc around the world. Also, this advancement in technology has never stopped. Software developers play a major role in it. We, the developers, have the potential to solve many real-world problems and we’ve been doing it since the inception of technology. Let me introduce an opportunity to you.

All About IBM Call for Code 2020

IBM Call for Code 2020 is an initiative founded by IBM and David Clark Cause. An annual challenge, with commitment from IBM for the association of 5 years, to nurture good talents in the field, Call For Code provides a great platform to help developers build their solutions and deploy them to scale. With this initiative, developers can use their best skills and the latest technologies to create long-lasting changes in the world.

This is the third year of this challenge and it asks all the talented software developers, data scientists, and technologists from around the world to come forward and take part in this global challenge, and build solutions that help communities prepare for, respond to the climate change problem.

This challenge will be providing the necessary support to all the talented developers interested in building and deploying the best solutions for real-life problems like climate change and COVID-19. This solution will be built as an open-source technology, and the winners will be assisted by tech experts like IBM’s open-source team, Red Hat Foundation, and many more.

In the 2019 Call For Code challenge, more than 180K people across the globe participated, and Prometeo won the Global Award for creating an AI-based platform to monitor and act on the health and safety of firefighters in real-time.

Why Participate in Call For Code?

While COVID-19 has seemed to shaken much of human society, the threat posed by global warming has not faded away. After the opening of lockdowns, Human activities have increased carbon dioxide emissions, driving up temperatures. Extreme weather and melting polar ice are among the possible effects.

As you all know natural disasters have become a common occurrence, happening almost every year in some parts of the world. Climate change is a worrisome problem that would affect our lives in the long term. 

In such cases, the right information and the dissemination of the information are the keys that can help us deal with the issue. We have so many tech advancements happening in various fields that can help people willing to build solutions. IBM is one such company whose vision is to solve real-world problems like climate change. We should actually use this opportunity to find and build solutions leveraging the resources provided by IBM..

“IBM is hoping for solutions that not only inform people with real-time event updates impacting their region but also the ones that help save lives ahead of and in the aftermath of disasters. Artificial intelligence, AI-powered chatbots, and natural language processing (NLP) could be used to improve real-time communications between first responders, victims, relief agencies, and more.” – Mr. Omkar Nimbalkar, Vice President, IBM Cognitive Application.

There are people like us who can prevent this by developing solutions and alternatives. Technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Internet Of Things(IoT), Data Analytics, and blockchain can help individuals, communities, and utility companies harness their data to increase efficiency and reduce expenditures. Global environmental challenges such as water quantity and quality can be solved with technology. We can use water more efficiently thus reducing greenhouse gases from treatment systems.

Web developers can actually make this happen by participating in this global Call For Code 2020 challenge and present our ideas. Winners will receive a cash prize of  $200K which will be presented at the Call For Code event.

This Call For Code 2020 initiative also has support from the United Nations Human Rights Office, The Linux Foundation, etc.

Challenge Details

So, there are two sub-categories in this year’s Call For Code. One is based on the ongoing novel coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis and the other is climate change.

For the Climate change category, you can focus on these problems.

• Water Sustainability
• Energy Sustainability
• Disaster Resiliency

How to Participate in the Call For Code 2020 – Climate Change category?

So here are the steps to participate in the Call for Code 2020 challenge-

1. Create a free account on IBM Cloud, Check out the Scope of Competition, the rules, schedule, and other details
2. Use the starter kits provided by IBM. These kits focus on Water Sustainability, Energy Sustainability, and Disaster Resiliency.
3. You may also go through the additional technical resources provided on Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Internet of things(IoT), Platform development.
4. Meet experts in the community and do your research on the idea, and look for updates on the IBM forum.
5. When it’s time that your solution is ready to be submitted, don’t forget to submit all the necessary details like title, description, a demo of the application, roadmap, and your contact information through the Call For Code submission page.
6. The team leader will get a confirmation email intimating them about the successful submission of their solution

Winning Prizes and Deadline-

So there will be only 1 winning team which will be getting $200K USD as a cash prize and will be invited to the global announcement program, along with support from The Linux Foundation for investment, mentorship, and implementation support.

Both first and second runners up will receive a cash prize of $25K USD each along with the invitation to the global announcement program.

Third and fourth runners up will receive a cash prize of $10K USD along with an invitation to the global event.

So, go participate and start building solutions!