IBM offers partners self-service platform, challenges coders to address natural disasters

Technology giant IBM has recently launched two programmes—one is IBM Partners, a digital self-service platform for its business partners, and the other, the Call for Code Global Initiative, aimed at addressing natural disasters, a report in The Economic Times stated.

As part of IBM Partners, the firm’s collaborators can develop and sell their solutions and help them grow their businesses. The platform will also provide its partners access to technologies such as blockchain, IBM’s cloud, and artificial intelligence platform Watson. Presently, it is available for IBM’s European customers, the report added.

Last month, IBM launched the Call for Code Global Initiative, a five-year programme that will bring together startup, academic and enterprise developers who will tap into data and AI, blockchain, cloud and Internet of Things technologies to address social challenges, the company had stated in a press release.

IBM has partnered with the United Nations Human Rights Office and American Red Cross for Call for Code. They will help frame the challenges and judge the coders’ solutions.

In India, Call for Code will take place next month in Pune, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and Gurugram.

“Broadly, Call for Code focuses on the development of innovative solutions that reduce human suffering and the number of people affected by natural disasters, ” Seema Kumar, head of the developer and startup ecosystem group for IBM India and South Asia, was quoted as telling ET.

The participants in the challenge can avail of open source IBM Code Patterns, IBM Cloud, Watson, Blockchain and IoT technologies to build their solutions, the report added.

“In India, we are looking at developers to come up with solutions for floods, earthquakes, drought, tsunami, cyclone storms, avalanches and landslides,” added Kumar, while speaking to ET.