Ideas can change the world — here’s why I’m excited to be a part of Call for Code!
Tomorrow IBM designers and developers from across Toronto will be answering the call to create powerful solutions that improve preparedness for natural disasters and accelerate relief when they hit. Committing to a full day of design thinking, sketching, and rapid hacking ending with a 3-minute pitch, IBMers will be joining people around the world hoping to apply technology and creativity to saving lives and helping communities in need.
What is Call for Code?
Now in its second year, the Call for Code Global Initiative unites the world’s 23 million developers, data scientists, and designers to unleash the power of cloud, AI, blockchain, and IoT technologies to create sustainable and scalable open source technologies.Potential solutions will help reduce the risk of disease, improve access to data and the availability of resources, and address the mental health needs of those impacted before, during, and after disasters. IBM — a founding partner, has pledged to spend $30 million over five years to rally support around this initiative.
Last year’s competition was dedicated to disaster relief and we had more than 100,000 technologists from 156 nations step up. The winning team — Project OWL is an IoT and software solution that keeps first responders and victims connected in a natural disaster. The winning team took home the grand prize of $200,000 USD and the opportunity to deploy the solution through the IBM Corporate Service Corps.
This year‘s challenge is focused on individual health and community well-being. Natural disasters leave behind more than just physical damage. A recent study in Japan traces links between disasters and mental illness. You might think that the death of friends or family would be the greatest risk factor for cognitive decline. But the study discovered that cognitive decline and onset of dementia, was more strongly correlated to house loss or damage than any other factor. As more people become displaced, facing such tough situations will greatly impact their mental health.
Answer the call
So tomorrow, we’ll be spending the day helping over 50 IBMers kick off their projects. I’m honoured to lead the design thinking activities tomorrow alongside my colleagues Marc-James Abi-Jaoude, Natalia Bagan, Jennie Heo, Jacqueline Liu, David Williams, and Arun Joseph. We’ve prepared a number of tools and frameworks to help team’s identify their target user, define their needs, articulate the problem, and come up with big ideas to solve them.
The world is filled with complicated problems and there are so many brilliant minds eager to solve them. I’m super excited to discover all of the innovative ideas that will no doubt emerge tomorrow and the weeks to come. Good luck to my fellow IBMers and get ready to change the world and save lives!
The Call for Code is open for submissions until June 28, 2019.
