Esri and IBM Team Up to Take on Climate Change with Call for Code
11.5.2021 20:23:00 EEST | Business Wire | Press release
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.
About Esri
Esri, the global market leader in geographic information system (GIS) software, location intelligence, and mapping, helps customers unlock the full potential of data to improve operational and business results. Founded in 1969 in Redlands, California, USA, Esri software is deployed in more than 350,000 organizations globally and in over 200,000 institutions in the Americas, Asia and the Pacific, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, including Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, nonprofits, and universities. Esri has regional offices, international distributors, and partners providing local support in over 100 countries on six continents. With its pioneering commitment to geospatial information technology, Esri engineers the most innovative solutions for digital transformation, the Internet of Things (IoT), and advanced analytics. Visit us at esri.com.
Copyright © 2021 Esri. All rights reserved. Esri, the Esri globe logo, ArcGIS, The Science of Where, esri.com, and @esri.com are trademarks, service marks, or registered marks of Esri in the United States, the European Community, or certain other jurisdictions. Other companies and products or services mentioned herein may be trademarks, service marks, or registered marks of their respective mark owners.
About Call for Code Global Challenge
Developers have revolutionized the way people live and interact with virtually everyone and everything. Where most people see challenges, developers see possibilities. That's why David Clark, the CEO of David Clark Cause, created Call for Code in 2018, and launched it alongside Founding Partner IBM and Charitable Partner UN Human rights. Since then, Call for Code has scaled to include an annual University Challenge in addition to regional prizes and the creation of Call for Code for Racial Justice. This multi-year global initiative is a rallying cry to developers to use their mastery of the latest technologies to drive positive and long-lasting change across the world through code. Call for Code Global Challenge winning solutions are further developed, incubated, and deployed as sustainable open source projects to ensure they can drive positive change. To learn more about past winners and their progress, visit IBM Developer.
To view this piece of content from cts.businesswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210511006031/en/
Contact information
Jo Ann Pruchniewski
Public Relations, Esri
Mobile: 301-693-2643
Email: jpruchniewski@esri.com
About Business Wire
For more than 50 years, Business Wire has been the global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure.
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
TACTICA AI Introduces Region’s First AI Platform for Mission-Critical, Real-Time Operational Decisions6.5.2026 18:18:00 EEST | Press release
TACTICA AI, an Abu Dhabi-based start-up, today introduced its multi-domain decision-support platform to a wider market during Make it in the Emirates 2026. At a time of increasing operational complexity and pressure to make faster, better-informed decisions, the platform is designed to transform fragmented intelligence, sensor, and operational data into real-time decisions. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260506006177/en/ TACTICA AI Introduces Region’s First AI Platform for Mission-Critical, Real-Time Operational Decisions (Photo: AETOSWire) Already active in operational environments, TACTICA AI is believed to be the first publicly known platform of its type developed in the region, creating a new category of operational AI that goes beyond dashboards, data feeds, and analytics tools to support decision-making at the mission layer. The underlying technology was developed by the Technology Innovation Institute
FlightSafety International Receives FAA Approval for Virtual Aircraft Preflight Inspection with Evaluation Mode6.5.2026 17:05:00 EEST | Press release
FlightSafety International Inc., the global leader in aviation training and simulation technology, today announced it has received Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approval for Virtual Aircraft Preflight Inspection (VAPI) with Evaluation Mode for three aircraft training programs: the Embraer EMB-550, Gulfstream G500/G600, and Citation Latitude. This innovative capability allows pilots in initial training to complete a 3D virtual aircraft preflight inspection while in Training Mode, with the added ability to transition directly into the flight deck, followed by Evaluation Mode, that allows pilots to do their preflight check ride portion. “VAPI represents a meaningful advancement in training innovation,” said David Penney, VP of Safety, Courseware and Regulatory Affairs, FlightSafety International. “By leveraging an immersive 3D environment, it offers pilots a more engaging and practical way to develop aircraft familiarity, strengthen inspection discipline, and better prepare for re
Riskified Unveils Next-Generation AI Suite at Ascend 2026, Empowering Merchants with Unprecedented Visibility and Control Over Ecommerce Risk6.5.2026 16:00:00 EEST | Press release
Riskified (NYSE: RSKD), a global leader in ecommerce fraud and risk intelligence, today announced a major leap forward in its AI platform capabilities, introducing a powerful suite of control and empowerment tools designed to give merchant fraud teams complete visibility into risk patterns and identity behavior, conversational AI-driven insights, and the ability to surgically tailor their risk strategies. The innovation suite was announced onstage at Ascend 2026, Riskified’s premier global summit series, taking place May 4-6, 2026, at the Conrad New York Downtown in Manhattan, NY. With global ecommerce continuing to expand and losses from AI-driven fraud attacks projected to spike, particularly with the rise of agentic commerce, where AI bots may conduct transactions on behalf of consumers, accurate fraud decisions are fundamental, but are no longer enough. Today, more than ever, sophisticated fraud and risk teams need to understand the why behind every transaction and pattern, and req
Twilio’s Next Generation Platform: An Infrastructure Layer for Every Conversation in the Agentic Era6.5.2026 16:00:00 EEST | Press release
Twilio (NYSE: TWLO), the infrastructure for customer engagement in the AI era, kicked off its user conference, SIGNAL, by unveiling its next generation platform capabilities for the agentic era. Generally available today, Conversation Memory, Conversation Orchestrator, Conversation Intelligence, and Agent Connect combine to turn disparate interactions into continuous, intelligent, and personal conversations across humans, agents, and systems. “The agentic era is here. Agents are joining conversations alongside the people they represent, and modern customer engagement requires an infrastructure that serves both equally,” said Khozema Shipchandler, Chief Executive Officer at Twilio. “Twilio’s new platform is the foundational infrastructure layer that makes every conversation persistent, contextual, and actionable – ensuring interactions feel like part of one continuous relationship." An Infrastructure Layer for Every Conversation Every business runs on conversations. Today, however, busi
Vultr, SUSE & Supermicro Debut Unified Cloud-to-Edge Architecture for Global AI Scaling6.5.2026 15:00:00 EEST | Press release
Vultr, the world's largest privately-held cloud infrastructure company, in collaboration with SUSE and Supermicro, today announces a strategic architectural framework designed to solve the complexities of deploying and operating AI workloads across distributed environments. As AI moves closer to the point of data creation - from manufacturing floors to retail storefronts - organizations face significant challenges in latency, cost and operational consistency. This joint initiative provides a seamless, Cloud-to-Edge pipeline that integrates high-performance hardware, localized cloud infrastructure, and unified Kubernetes management. The partnership addresses the reality that sending all data back to a central cloud is no longer viable for real-time AI. The solution breaks down the infrastructure into three critical layers: The Cloud and Near-Edge - Enterprises can deploy regional Kubernetes-based AI clusters closer to their users by leveraging Vultr’s 33 global cloud data center regions
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom