Thiruvananthapuram, India - 07 Sep 2018: The Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) and NASSCOM in collaboration with IBM (NYSE: IBM) today commenced the Call for Code global challenge in Kerala, a two-day hackathon, bringing together developers to build innovative solutions to alleviate the effects of natural disasters. In the aftermath of the recent floods in the state, IBM, KSUM and NASSCOM are joining forces to leverage the power of open technologies like Cloud, AI, IoT and Blockchain in building better solutions for the future.

Call for Code is an ambitious global initiative to bring startup, academic and enterprise developers together to solve one of the most pressing societal issues of our time: preventing, responding to and recovering from natural disasters.

“The recent floods in Kerala have been devastating, and as a society, we are still coping with the aftereffects,” said Seema Kumar, Country Leader, Developer Ecosystem & Startups at IBM. “To help people in distress and safeguard against future incidents, IBM is bringing together the developer community around the world – and locally – by giving them access to technologies, free code, and training with experts to help them build innovative tools for natural disaster relief.

“We are witnessing a remarkable growth in the developer ecosystem, propelled by innovative thinking and attitude to build solutions in key sectors where technology can play a revolutionary role. We believe that the program will not only catalyze the constantly innovating developer ecosystem but will also help design path-breaking solutions for disaster management and preparedness,” said Suresh Jayaraju, Senior Director, Head 10000 Startups.

“Many of the participants attending the hackathon has been directly or indirectly affected by the recent floods in Kerala. This will be one of those locations where people will be coding with not just their brains, but also with their heart", said Prof. Saji Gopinath, CEO, Kerala Startup Mission/Director IITMK during the inauguration of the hackathon. He also applauded IBM for this global initiative.

As part of Call for Code, IBM has organized over 300 events in 50 cities around the world in addition to Call for Code days across 13 IBM Development Labs in eight different countries to engage developers. In India, over 40 similar events were organized across major cities including Hyderabad, Bangalore, Goa, Mumbai, Nagpur, Gurgaon and Chennai. During the hackathon, developers will have access to resources, codes, tools and technology from IBM, across areas like Blockchain, AI, Weather Prediction and Machine Learning to build their solutions. There will be a special design thinking workshop organized for the developer teams, which will orient them to adopt a creative problem solving approach. All entries for the Call for Code Kerala edition will be considered for the global competition.

The winning team will receive the first ever Call for Code Global Prize, a financial award of $200,000 USD. They will have access to longer-term support through IBM’s partnership with the Linux Foundation, as well as the opportunity to present their solution to venture capitalist firm New Enterprises Associates (NEA) for evaluation and feedback. The winning solution also will quickly transition from the development lab to the real world through the deployment of their technology via IBM’s Corporate Service Corps.

Additional details, a full schedule of in-person and virtual events, and training and enablement for Call for Code are available at http://www.developer.ibm.com/callforcode.