Daniel Krook is the Chief Technology Officer of IBM Code and Response and Call for Code, a multi-year competition that inspires developers to create sustainable software solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. He ensures that those ideas are delivered where they can make the greatest impact as CTO of the IBM Code and Response Initiative.
Most recently seen with Hurricane Dorian, the impact of devastating wildfires, landslides, hurricanes and other natural disasters continues to grow every year – but with the help of the global developer community and open source technologies, we have the potential to significantly improve preparedness for natural disasters and accelerate relief when they hit this is where the “Call for Code” comes in right Daniel?
Enter Call for Code, a $30 million, five-year global challenge that unites developers to create applications powered by open-source technology that can tackle some of the world’s biggest challenges. Call for Code was launched by the David Clarke Cause alongside founding partner IBM in 2018. Now in its second year, the Call for Code program has engaged 24 million developers around the world).
This year, more than 180,000 independent and enterprise developers, data scientists, activists, and students from 165 nations participated to create technologies that can help local communities in need. These teams used data and open source-powered technology – including cloud, artificial intelligence, and blockchain – to create more than 5,000 applications.
The five finalists for this years’ Call for Code, were chosen from an elite group of top technology solutions around 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 emergency call center calls during natural disasters, by their level of emergency, but transcribing calls and analyzing them 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 provides victims of natural disasters with high-quality mental healthcare by streamlining the process for caseworkers to connect with survivors who may be struggling after a traumatic experience. By leveraging the IBM Watson platform, Helios can provide high-quality mental healthcare at scale by way of a mobile application, compatible with both iOS and Android.
- Prometeo (Europe) – 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, and uses real-time satellite imagery analysis to enable 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.
The global initiative culminates on Saturday, October 12th when the 2019 Call for Code winner was announced during an awards ceremony 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-sourced deployment to benefit communities in need. Second, third, fourth and fifth-place winners also receive a cash price.
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. 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.
For more information please visit: callforcode.org
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