REDLANDS, CALIF.-- May 12, 2021 -- Esri, the global leader in location intelligence, today announced it is joining the fourth annual Call for Code Global Challenge. Created by David Clark Cause and launched in partnership with IBM, United Nations Human Rights, and the Linux Foundation, Call for Code is designed to make an immediate and lasting global impact on humanitarian issues, using open-source-powered technology. In this year’s competition, software developers and innovators around the world will take on climate change with open-source software, including Red Hat OpenShift, IBM Cloud, IBM Watson, IBM Blockchain, and data from The Weather Company.

Since Call for Code was launched in 2018, more than 400,000 developers and problem solvers across 179 nations have participated, creating more than 15,000 applications. This year’s competition focuses on three sub-themes related to combating climate change: water availability and consumption, food production and delivery, and economic production and consumption.

The winning team will receive $200,000 and support from the IBM Service Corps, technical experts, and partners—to develop their technology, make their code available for anyone to use in open-source, and deploy their solution on the ground in communities around the world.

For its role in the Call for Code Global Challenge, Esri has made its geospatial analytics software and resources available to each participant, including the following:

· A free ArcGIS Platform developer account.
· A $100 voucher applied to the participant’s ArcGIS account, allowing them to kick-start their solution with cloud hosting, analytical processing, and location services (This is available to the first 100 participants.)
· Access to dedicated community support where participants can connect with mentors that can help them accelerate app development.

“Esri has just released a location platform as a service product that makes it easy for software developers to access geospatial technology,” said David Cardella, Product Manager—Developer Technologies, Esri. “Some of the most exciting ways users are putting our software to work is in creating apps that help meet challenges related to climate change. We are excited to introduce our flexible, scalable location services that make content and capabilities available to developers who are building the next generation of geospatial solutions.”

For more information and to learn how to get started on the Call for Code Global Challenge with Esri’s offer, visit the ArcGIS Blog. Watch Kareem Yusuf, General Manager, AI Applications and Blockchain, IBM and Jack Dangermond, Founder and President, Esri, discuss their partnership and the importance of technology to address climate change here.

“We are excited to work with Esri and our global ecosystem throughout the 2021 Call for Code Global Challenge to drive, incubate, and deploy solutions that will combat climate change,” said Willie M. Tejada, IBM Chief Developer Advocate and General Manager ISV/Build Ecosystem. “Climate change is a monumental challenge and demands the participation of world-renowned humanitarian experts, business leaders, and technology partners like Esri to have an immediate and lasting effect.”

What makes Call for Code unique is the impact it is making on the ground through deployments in communities around the world. Last year’s winning solution, Agrolly, was designed to support small farmers by providing climate and crop predictions and recommendations. The agriculture industry is one of the most vulnerable to climate change due to its dependence on rainfall and temperature. Since October, the Agrolly team has expanded the solution to new markets and provided hands-on training to more than 500 rural farmers in Mongolia, India, and Brazil, who are testing and using the app to fight the effects of climate change.