Each one of us moved by the sufferings of people of Kerela floods. We all are trying to help people there in our capacities. But now there is a chance for Coders to develop solutions which can fightback natural disasters.
IBM India joined hands with technology ecosystem to tackle natural disasters. IBM today announced Persistent Systems, Invest India, Wipro Limited, Capgemini and NASSCOM have joined the multi-year Call for Code Global Initiative to create a better future. Call for Code, announced in May 2018, is the largest and most ambitious effort to bring startup, academic and enterprise developers together to solve one of the most pressing societal issues of our time: preventing, responding to and recovering from natural disasters. Through Call for Code, IBM and David Clark Cause are joining forces to benefit their Charitable Partners: United Nations Human Rights and The American Red Cross.
Access to IBM’s technologies
IBM will provide access to cloud, data, AI and blockchain technologies, along with training and code to the developers. Since inception, over 35 organizations and 20+ IBM clients have ‘answered the call’ to help improve the world. In India, IBM garnered the support of technology industry leaders like Persistent Systems, Wipro Limited and Capgemini to host hackathons within their organizations to inspire their workforce to grow into problem solvers. NASSCOM and Invest India extended support in reaching out to startups and encouraging young entrepreneurs to be a part of the social change in India.
Dr. Anand Deshpande, Chairman and Managing Director, Persistent Systems:
“We are proud to partner with IBM in this global movement to leverage next generation technology in addressing natural disasters. We believe in utilizing technology for the betterment of human life and it has been rewarding to participate in this cause as it allows you to learn and look at broader problems that are beyond today and tomorrow. We look forward to exciting solutions and open source platforms through this hackathon that will benefit the society at large.”
Kumar Anurag Pratap, CSR Leader, Capgemini Technology Sevices India Limited:
“Capgemini is proud to support the Call for Code initiative, as it allows us to advance our efforts to have a positive impact on the world and on the specific communities in which we live, by leveraging the strength of Capgemini—which lies in the technical and creative expertise of our diverse workforce”
Sangeeta Gupta, Sr. VP & Chief Strategy Officer, Nasscom
“Nasscom is delighted to be part of the Call for Code initiative and we see this as a true representation of coming together of IT community. Digital technologies are playing an important role more than ever and we expect the initiative to generate solutions that will benefit the society. We’re planning on hosting a 2-day hackathon in Trivandrum, where Nasscom and senior technical experts from IBM will help design and build solutions that will help tackle similar situations in future.”
Suyash Mishra, Assitant VP, Invest India
“An initiative such as Call for Code is the need of the hour. The Indian government has always been supportive of such initiatives and expect several stakeholders such as coders, startups to come together and contribute towards this cause. We will extend our support to the solutions that will come out of this initiative so that they can benefit the society on a large scale.”
Ramachandran Padmanabhan, Global Head, Cloud Applications, Wipro Limited said, “We are proud to be a part of the ‘Call for Code’ initiative which allows Wiproites to blend deep technology expertise and a passion for global citizenship to act as catalysts in bringing about positive change.”
There have been over 300 events in 50 cities around the world in addition to Call for Code days across 13 IBM Development Labs in eight different countries to engage developers. India has held 40 similar events across all major cities in the Country including Hyderabad, Bangalore, Goa, Mumbai, Nagpur, Gurgaon and Chennai.
Call to world’s second largest developer community in India
“2017 has been the costliest year ever for natural disasters in the Indian sub-continent. At the same time, India has the second largest developer community with 3.5 million developers – a community with great potential to create innovative solutions. IBM intends to harness this potential by giving developers access to tools, technologies, free code, and training with experts that will strengthen our efforts towards mitigating disasters,” said Seema Kumar, Country Leader, Developer Ecosystem & Startups at IBM. “We thank our partners who have played a crucial role in this year’s Call for Code by validating our shared vision of helping humanity tackle natural disasters,” she added.
The winning team will receive the first ever Call for Code Global Prize, a financial award of 200,000 USD. They will have access to longer-term support through IBM’s partnership with the Linux Foundation, as well as the opportunity to present their solution to to venture capitalist firm New Enterprises Associates (NEA) for evaluation and feedback. The winning solution also will quickly transition from the development lab to the real world through the deployment of their technology via IBM’s Corporate Service Corps.
