NEW YORK, Sept. 17, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Call for Code
Founding Partner IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Creator David Clark Cause
today announced the top five finalists for the 2019 edition of the
Call for Code Global Challenge, an initiative that unites hundreds
of thousands of developers to create applications powered by open
source technology that can tackle some of the world's biggest
challenges.
Building on the success of last year's inaugural challenge, Call
for Code 2019 is focused on creating solutions to help mitigate the
effects of natural disasters and help communities better prepare
and respond to the needs of survivors, as natural disasters are a
growing issue affecting every region worldwide. A recent survey
conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs
Research found that almost three-quarters of Americans see weather
disasters, like Hurricane Dorian, worsening and attribute it to the
harmful effects of climate change.1
More than 180,000 independent and enterprise developers, data
scientists, activists, and students from 165 nations took part in
this year's challenge. The teams used Weather Company data and open
source-powered technology – including IBM Cloud, IBM Watson,
and IBM Blockchain – to create more than 5,000 applications
designed to enhance access to vital information that could help
first responders and health practitioners assist survivors of
natural disasters.
"Natural disasters are not going away. Rather, as the impact of
devastating wildfires, landslides, and hurricanes grows fiercer
every year, preparation and response to these events must evolve,"
said Bob Lord, Senior Vice
President, Cognitive Applications and Developer Ecosystems at IBM.
"IBM believes that we should apply today's newest technologies not
just to business needs, but to global humanitarian crises as well.
From enabling the independent developer with a new disaster-relief
app, to the nurse with an idea about using AI to help triage in
emergencies, we can do more to support our first responders and
health providers; we can give them technologies that are customized
to workers' and communities' needs and scaled for maximum effect to
expand what's humanly possible when disasters strike."
The $30 million, five-year Call
for Code Global Challenge – whose Charitable Partner is United
Nations Human Rights – is housed under IBM's Code and Response
program, an initiative that harnesses the power of open source to
deliver effective solutions on the ground in local communities
around the world. Along with the IBM Corporate Service Corps—which
deploys IBMers to partner with government, businesses, and civic
leaders to address high-priority issues such as education, health,
and natural disasters—Code and Response is a part of IBM's ongoing
commitment to harness and deploy tech for social good.
These five finalists were chosen from an elite group of dozens
of the top solutions from each region of the world:
- AsTeR (Europe) – During natural disasters,
emergency call centers are overwhelmed and lack the human resources
to deal with the sudden uptick in calls. Project AsTeR helps
prioritize these calls based on their level of emergency. Instead
of being directly connected to an operator, victims are asked to
briefly explain their emergency over the phone. Their responses are
then converted to text and analyzed to extract key information,
such as the number of victims, type of emergency and location.
AsTeR then provides first responders with a map identifying areas
with high levels of emergency based on the number of people
involved and the type of injuries.
- Healios (North America)
– Healios can provide victims of natural disasters accessible,
high-quality mental healthcare by streamlining the process for case
workers to connect with survivors who may be struggling after a
traumatic experience. By leveraging the IBM Watson platform,
Healios can provide high-quality mental healthcare at scale by way
of a mobile application, compatible with both iOS and Android.
Through its approachable user experience, Healios aims to
revolutionize the way all people perceive and treat their mental
health.
- Prometeo (Europe) –
Currently there are not individualized strategies and policies to
help protect firefighters from the cumulative effect of smoke and
toxic substances that are inhaled while they're on duty. Prometeo
is a cognitive platform that collects data from IoT sensors worn by
firefighters and sends it to Watson Studio, a Watson Machine
Learning service, with professionals to monitor their health in
real time, detect trends, and recommend intervention.
- Rove (North America)
– Project Rove is an emergency response solution that connects
responders to victims deemed to be most in need. Natural language
processing and crowdsourced SMS messaging first attempts to
organize victim health, food, and hygiene needs by priority and
location. Rove then groups and highlights at-risk victims on an
interactive web dashboard. Lastly, real-time satellite imagery
analysis enables rescue workers to quickly reach victims by
generating routes avoiding damaged buildings and roads.
- Sparrow Platform (Asia
Pacific) – Sparrow Platform is an
open-source ecosystem that can ensure medical and psychological
preparedness, well-being, and recovery. By leveraging AI, IoT, mesh
networks, and cloud, Sparrow enables ubiquitous access to medical
help, medical records, information and alerts during and after
disasters. For users, Sparrow is a conversational AI that is
accessible through many devices or chat/social apps, with or
without internet connectivity. It can act as the user's single
point of connection with doctors across the world, information from
application/disaster management platforms, communication channels,
and more. Doctors can onboard Sparrow to help those in need, and
developers can create 'Sparrow Applets' to make their new or
existing apps accessible to users through Sparrow.
The global winner will be chosen by some of the
most eminent global leaders in human rights, disaster
response, business, and technology, including former President
Bill Clinton.
The winning solution will be further developed and deployed via
IBM Code and Response, an initiative in collaboration with of some
of the world's leading disaster, technology, and human rights
organizations including: United Nations Office for Disaster Risk
Reduction, Clinton Foundation and Clinton Global Initiative
University, The Linux Foundation, AT&T, FirstNet Authority,
Consumer Technology Association Foundation, and Partnership for
Inclusive Disaster Strategies. These innovative organizations and
agencies are helping to equip developers – ranging from academia to
enterprise – with the tools to address pressing societal needs
by:
- Providing developers with important knowledge from the
field;
- Co-hosting events to harness modern, emerging, and open source
technologies;
- Assisting with the testing of potential solutions; and/or
- Connecting technologists to affected groups in preparedness,
response and recovery efforts.
With the insights and resources from the Code and Response
ecosystem, developers have the ability to make a real difference in
the world. For example, Code and Response is currently piloting
Project Owl, the winning solution from Call for Code 2018, in
regions recently affected by natural disasters, including
Puerto Rico and Houston, Texas.
"While climate change and natural hazards place a greater burden
on low and middle-income countries, this problem is not just
confined to the developing world. We must all find opportunities to
transform our communities and societies," said Mami Mizutori,
Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General (SRSG), who
served as an eminent judge for this year's challenge. "I want to
commend the participants in this year's Call for Code Global
Challenge for their ingenuity and commitment to using tech for
good. I believe these ideas hold immense potential for empowering
local communities around the world to build resilience in the face
of disaster risk."
The Call for Code Global Prize recipient will be announced on
October 12, 2019 at the Code and
Response Celebration at the United Nations Delegates Dining Room in
New York City. The winning team
will receive a cash prize of USD $200,000 and support from IBM, The Linux
Foundation, and other partners interested in turning the winning
idea into a real-world, open source deployment to benefit
communities in need.
About Call for Code Global Challenge
Developers have
revolutionized the way people live and interact with virtually
everyone and everything. Where most people see challenges,
developers see possibilities. That's why David Clark Cause launched
Call for Code in 2018 alongside Founding Partner IBM. This
five-year, $30 million global
initiative is a rallying cry to developers to use their skills and
mastery of the latest technologies, and to create new ones, to
drive positive and long-lasting change across the world with their
code. Call for Code global winning solutions, among others, are
further developed and deployed via IBM's Code and Response
initiative.
About IBM's Code and Response Initiative
Code and
Response is a $25 million, four-year
deployment initiative to put open source technologies developed as
part of coding challenges—such as Call for Code—in the communities
where they are needed most. Code and Response aims to provide
resources to build, fortify, test, and implement solutions at
scale. The initiative is supported by IBMers as part of the IBM
Corporate Service Corps, as well as government and multinational
NGO partners to put those technologies to work to help save
lives.
MEDIA CONTACTS
Mike Sefanov
IBM Developer Media Relations
650-281-8099
mike.sefanov@ibm.com
1 AP-NORC poll conducted August 15-19, 2019: "Is the Weather Getting
Worse?"
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