IBM’s Code and Response is open source tech for natural disasters

IBM used its Think 2019 conference this month to announce Code and Response, a $25 million, four-year initiative to put open source technologies developed as part of coding challenges in the communities where they are needed most.

Code and Response is supported by IBM, a number of international (but predominantly US) governmental links as well as NGO partners.

A connected partnership with the Clinton Global Initiative University is hoped to provide college-age developers with the skills in line with this initiative.

In its first year, Code and Response will pilot Project Owl, the winning solution from Call for Code 2018, in disaster-struck regions like Puerto Rico, North Carolina, Osaka, and Kerala.

IBM senior vice president for cognitive applications and developer ecosystems Bob Lord has noted that every year natural disasters affect close to 160 million people worldwide.

“To take a huge leap forward in effective disaster response, we must tap into the global open source ecosystem to generate sustainable solutions we can scale and deploy in the field. But we cannot do it alone,” said Lord.

IBM chairman, president and CEO Ginni Rometty announced Call for Code 2019 as part of the company’s five-year, $30 million commitment to social impact coding challenges.

The goal is once again to unite the world’s 23 million developers and data scientists to unleash the power of cloud, AI, blockchain and IoT technologies to create sustainable (and scalable) open source technologies. The emphasis this year is on the health and wellbeing of individuals and communities threatened by natural disasters.