Esri and IBM Team Up to Take on Climate Change with Call for Code
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
MRM Health Secures FDA IND Clearance to Launch its Phase 2b Trial of MH002 in Mild-to-Moderate Ulcerative Colitis9.1.2026 08:00:00 EET | Press release
MRM Health NV, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company pioneering microbiome-based therapeutics for inflammatory diseases and immune-oncology, today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted clearance of its Investigational New Drug (IND) application for its lead program MH002. This enables the initiation of the STARFISH-UC Phase 2b clinical trial in patients with mild-to-moderate ulcerative colitis, marking a significant step forward in the development of next-generation therapies for inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). About the STARFISH-UC Phase 2b Trial The STARFISH-UC trial is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study designed to confirm the promising efficacy signals and favorable safety profile previously observed in MH002’s Phase 2a studies. MH002, a rationally designed live microbial consortium, is the most advanced Live Biotherapeutic Product (LBP) of its kind, targeting disease-specific mechanisms through a synergistic combination of
FieldBee Vision wins Gold for Digital Technology Innovation at LAMMA 20269.1.2026 06:25:00 EET | Press release
FieldBee, the European leader in high-quality, easy-to-use and affordable precision agriculture technologies, proudly announces that FieldBee Vision has earned global recognition, becoming the Gold Winner in the Digital Technology Innovation of the Year category at the LAMMA Innovation Awards 2026. Lamma Show is the UK’s premier agricultural machinery, technology and equipment innovation. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260107606411/en/ FieldBee wins the LAMMA Innovation Award 2026 for Digital Technology Innovation of the Year for the FieldBee Vision (VisionSteer & VisionPro) system FieldBee Vision is part of the newly launched myFieldBee ecosystem, built to unify FieldBee’s precision farming tools and designed to connect navigation, autosteering, ISOBUS into one unified platform that supports planning, execution, monitoring and reporting. FieldBee Vision, the first modular retrofit agricultural vision system,
Survey Finds Over 70% of Chinese Doctors Recommend “AI Doctor Services” Like Ant Group’s AQ for Everyday Health Needs9.1.2026 05:31:00 EET | Press release
A recent survey by Life Times, a well-known Chinese public health media outlet, shows that AI doctor services are broadly supported by doctors in China. Among 500 physicians from the country’s top-tier (tertiary) hospitals, more than 70% said they would recommend AI doctor services to patients for everyday health questions and routine health management. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260108456917/en/ Ant Group’s AI-native health app AQ is designed to address common, everyday health concerns and support healthy habit formation. Ant Group’s AQ was the most frequently recommended platform in the survey. The latest figures show that, as of January 2026, the app had accumulated 30 million monthly active users and answers over 10 million health-related questions daily, making it China’s leading AI-native health app. AQ—known in Chinese as Ant A-Fu—is an AI-native health app launched by Ant Group in June 2025. Desig
OPPO Joins VVC Advance Patent Pool as a Licensee and Extends HEVC Advance License9.1.2026 04:00:00 EET | Press release
Access Advance LLC and Guangdong OPPO Mobile Telecommunications Corp., Ltd. (OPPO) today announced that OPPO has joined the VVC Advance Patent Pool as a Licensee and renewed its HEVC Advance License. OPPO, one of the world's largest smartphone manufacturers with operations in more than 70 countries, has been a valued participant in Access Advance's HEVC patent pool since 2020, and more recently joined the Advance Video Distribution Patent (VDP) Pool as a Licensor. These latest agreements mark a new milestone in a broad and deepening relationship between the two companies, with OPPO now participating across all three of Access Advance's video codec licensing programs. The VVC Advance Patent Pool licenses patents essential to the VVC/H.266 standard, which delivers remarkable improvement of video compression performance over HEVC, enabling higher-quality video experiences including 4K, 8K, and HDR content with faster downloads and lower latency. The pool currently includes over 4,500 worl
Cessna Citation CJ3 Gen2 Enters Into Service, Delivering the Most Significant Gen2 Updates to Date8.1.2026 23:30:00 EET | Press release
The Cessna Citation CJ3 Gen2 has entered into service, setting a new standard for the Citation Gen2 family. Launch customers and longtime Citation owners Dave Mecartney and Shannon Day took delivery of their new aircraft this week. Mecartney—an experienced aviator with nearly two decades flying Citation light jets and a member of Textron Aviation’s Customer Advisory Board—helped shape the enhancements that elevate the CJ3 Gen2 experience. Key upgrades include Garmin autothrottle technology, added pilot legroom and a fully customizable cabin environment, all driven by customer feedback. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260108455097/en/ Cessna Citation CJ3 Gen2 enters into service, delivering the most significant Gen2 updates to date (Photo credit: Textron Aviation). The Cessna Citation CJ3 Gen2 is designed and manufactured by Textron Aviation Inc., a Textron Inc. (NYSE: TXT) company. “The Citation CJ3 Gen2 deliv
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