In addition to climate change, IBM is adding COVID-19 to its 2020 Call for Code Global Challenge, the company announced Friday.
Competitors are being asked to focus on crisis communication in emergencies, ways to improve remote learning and how to inspire cooperation between local communities.
This is the third year of the challenge. Last year, more than 180,000 developers from 165 countries created 5,000 applications focused on natural disaster preparedness and relief. The top winner gets a $200,000 prize and support to deploy the technology.
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In February, IBM announced its 2020 Challenge to address climate change, but added COVID-19 because of its “unprecedented effect” with the “potential to become the greatest crisis of modern times,” IBM said in a blog.
For climate change code, developers get starter kits related to water sustainability, energy sustainability and disaster resilience. The COVID-19 focus is to build open source technology around communication, remote education and community cooperation. IBM said the cooperation category could include weather data and local food and medical supply information to help a community better deal with a crisis.