IBM to develop technology-based solution to tackle natural disasters

IBM on Wednesday announced a partnership with several technology giants as part of its "Call for Code Global Initiative" to create solutions to mitigate the aftermath of natural disasters.

The programme, launched by IBM in May 2018, now includes Persistent Systems, Invest India, Wipro Limited, Capgemini and NASSCOM.

It aims to bring start-ups, 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.

"2017 has been the costliest year ever for natural disasters in the Indian sub-continent. At the same time, India has the second largest developer community with 3.5 million developers -- a community with great potential to create innovative solutions," Seema Kumar, Country Leader, Developer Ecosystem and Start-ups at IBM, said in a statement.

"IBM intends to harness this potential by giving developers access to tools, technologies, free code, and training with experts that will strengthen our efforts towards mitigating disasters," she added.

As part of the programme, IBM will provide access to Cloud, data, artificial intelligence (AI) and Blockchain technologies, along with training and code to the developers.

Since the inception of the programme, over 35 organisations have "answered the call" to help improve the world, the statement said.

While tech giants like Persistent Systems, Wipro Limited and Capgemini hosted hackathons within their organisations to inspire their workforce to grow into problem solvers, NASSCOM and Invest India extended support in reaching out to start-ups and encouraging young entrepreneurs to be a part of the social change in India.

There have been 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.

India has held 40 similar events across all major cities in the country including Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Goa, Mumbai, Nagpur, Gurugram and Chennai.

In addition, in the wake of heavy rains and floods that wreaked havoc in Kerala, IBM also announced a two-day hackathon in partnership with NASSCOM, to help design and build solutions to tackle natural disasters.

The hackathon is scheduled to be held in the first week of September at Thiruvananthapuram.

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