Call for code 2020 is an initiative founded by IBM and David Clark Cause in partnership with United Nations Human Rights and the linux foundation, which is a multi year challenge for developers to solve the most scathing universal issues. This gives the developers a platform to grow themselves and thereby helping the company to get the desired solution built and deployed to scale.
Last year, Call for Code 2019 was a great success, where over 180,000 people participated across the world and Prometeo made an AI based health monitoring platform for firefighters who was selected as the winner for that year.
2020 is the third year for the Call for Code challenge where it asks scientists, developers and technologist people from across the world to take part in it and make efficient solutions to resolve various issues, natural disasters like for the ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic.
The most important issue affecting the globe right now is COVID-19 and the other one is Climate Change. These are some of the most discussed topics right now in the world where over 3 Million COVID-19 Cases are there in the world (as of May 5th 2020) which has led to deteriorating the world’s economy and also changing the weather patterns which at the end threatens the life forms on this earth.
The Challenge categories are as follows:
Crisis Communication– There is still a gap in the communication system around the globe, if it gets improved this could lead to a positive change in the current COVID-19 Scenario.
Remote Education – There are still a lot of communities in the rural and urban areas who are not taking this situation seriously, which can make COVID-19 cases to increase drastically. Educating about the current situation would lead to less no. of cases or atleast would help in containing the virus and not letting it spread the way it is spreading right now. People should also be educated in regards to the fake news which people are spreading through various messaging applications like whatsapp, facebook etc. This is going to be another factor in building up your solution towards COVID-19 here.
Community Cooperation– Community cooperation is necessary to stop the spread of COVID-19 Virus. Developers can make some solutions around it for better communication between authorities that would certainly help in mitigation of the virus.
Timeline for the challenge:
April 27 – Deadlines for the COVID-19 submissions that will provide a great opportunity to all the teams, to be able to get featured on IBM THINK 2020 on May 5th.
May 5 – Top 3 solutions will be announced on May 5th at IBM THINK 2020
May 15 – Deployment of the top 3 solutions shall begin here
July 31 – This would be the deadline for the final submissions for both
October– Winners will be announced somewhere in October and there will be an award ceremony too for the same.
This is a golden opportunity for all the developers and technologist people out there as this would bring a change in this COVID-19 affected world and would give you an exposure to some of the greatest leaders in the world.
How to participate in the Call for Code Challenge?
It is a pretty simple process for anyone to apply for the Call for Code 2020 challenge. One just has to go on IBM’s website and create a free account. Enter all the details like Name, Password, Email address etc and then verify your email address by clicking on the verification link sent to your respective email address. Once this is done your email address would become your IBMid.
After this your registration is completed and you can participate in the Call for Code 2020 challenge. There are some starter kits available on the website for developers to begin with, which focuses on Crisis communication, Community cooperation and Remote education.
Once the solution is done, submitting the same is an easy process. Make sure to provide all the details like The Title, Description, Demo of the application, roadmap, and your contact information via the submission page.
Please note that IBM collects the information about the IP addresses and the email address of the participants to make sure of their authenticity. The company does not keep any other personal information and if anytime a user wants to exit, they can do so by deleting their IBMids via the website itself which deletes all the information
Why Participate and how it can help the world?
Everything in this world is unpredictable, one never knows what can happen next. Natural disasters around the globe are very common, like what is happening in the world right now with COVID-19. Economy has been affected globally due to this, and now this has even affected the healthcare system. There isn’t any technology in the world that can predict such natural disasters but it’s the developers who make this happen by participating in the Call for Code challenge and bringing a solution out of it. It would also make you win a $200K cash prize and a global reputation amongst investors etc.
IBM makes it pretty easy for developers to make a solution around the challenges they bring every year, since they have a lot of study material and tutorials around the same on their website where a developer can learn how to code on AI, IoT, Blockchain etc. Starter kits are available easily for them, hence this is how a developer can start making the solution.
Once they decide how and what has to be done, developers can team up with other people around the globe through social media groups, forums or the stack platform provided by IBM and find their team mates if needed.
Winning Prize
Once the contest finishes, one team will be selected as the winner of the Call for Code 2020 Challenge and will be getting a $200K Grand cash prize along with invitation to the global announcement program with support from Linux foundation, mentorship and implementation support along with interviews with investors for future perspectives.
Apart from the first prize, there would be four runner up teams out of which first and second runner up teams would receive a cash prize of $25K each whereas Third and fourth would receive a cash prize of $10K USD along with invitation to the global announcement program to all four of the teams.
There’s a University Prize too where the student team will get $10K USD dispersed equally amongst them.
Also, Each student team member from all these four runner up teams and student team will receive an opportunity to interview for a potential role at IBM.
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