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
emnify Appoints Sacha Herrmann as Chief Financial Officer and Christian Friis as Chief Revenue Officer2.10.2026 18:12:00 EEST | Press release
emnify, a global leader in IoT connectivity, today announced the appointments of Sacha Herrmann as Chief Financial Officer and Christian Friis as Chief Revenue Officer, effective immediately. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261001902751/en/ emnify Appoints Sacha Herrmann as Chief Financial Officer and Christian Friis as Chief Revenue Officer The appointments follow the recent naming of Kenneth De Spiegeleire as Chief Executive Officer and Frank Stoecker as Executive Chairman of the Board. Together, these leadership changes strengthen emnify financial, operational, and commercial capabilities as the company enters its next phase of international growth. “We have proven momentum. Our ambition is to now turn it into global category leadership,” said Kenneth De Spiegeleire, CEO of emnify. “That requires sharper focus, disciplined execution, and the right capabilities in the right seats. Sacha brings financial lead
Tacton Appoints Former IFS Executive Merlin Knott as Chief Commercial Officer to Accelerate Global Growth and Scale Beyond CPQ2.10.2026 16:00:00 EEST | Press release
Tacton, a global leader in Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) software and configuration solutions for manufacturers of complex products, today announced the appointment of Merlin Knott as Chief Commercial Officer (CCO). In this role, Knott will lead Tacton’s global commercial organization, including marketing, sales, and pre-sales, aligning the teams responsible for bringing Tacton’s solutions to market, and driving value to its customers and partners globally. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261002794882/en/ Merlin Knott, Chief Commercial Officer, Tacton Knott joins Tacton with decades of experience building and scaling commercial organizations across the enterprise software industry. Most recently, he held senior leadership roles at IFS, the world’s leading provider of Industrial AI software, where he led global partner and channel operations before becoming President of the company’s Enterprise Service Manageme
EDW Presents 2026 Data Quality Award to Repeat Winner Domivest2.10.2026 16:00:00 EEST | Press release
European DataWarehouse (EDW) presented its fifth annual Data Quality Award at the 2026 TSI Congress in Berlin. This year, EDW's Best Data Quality – Deal of the Year (2026) award was presented to Domivest B.V. for its transaction Domi 2023-1 B.V., recognising the firm's outstanding commitment to accurate, complete, and consistent reporting. The award is based on EDW's proprietary data quality scoring methodology, which evaluates transactions against thousands of validation rules and checks. Data quality excellence is not a one-off achievement. The fact that the same issuers continue to rank among the top performers year after year demonstrates that superior data quality is the result of sustained commitment, robust processes, and ongoing investment. "Receiving the Data Quality Award for a second time means a great deal to us. Transparent, accurate loan-level data is key to investor trust in our transactions, and we are grateful to European DataWarehouse for recognising the work our trea
ILiAD Biotechnologies Expands BPZE1 Public Health and Commercial Potential with Publication of Pediatric Phase 2b Study in The Lancet Infectious Diseases2.10.2026 15:00:00 EEST | Press release
ILiAD Biotechnologies, Inc. (ILiAD), an advanced clinical stage biotech company focused on the prevention and treatment of disease caused by Bordetella pertussis, today announced the publication of results from its Phase 2b SUPER (Stand Up to Pertussis) clinical trial in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. This randomized, double blind, placebo- and active-comparator-controlled trial demonstrated that BPZE1, a live attenuated intranasal pertussis vaccine, induced robust nasal mucosal immune responses in healthy children aged 6 through 17 years (LINK). The study demonstrated that a single intranasal dose of BPZE1 induced nasal mucosal immune responses against all Bordetella pertussis antigens tested and was well tolerated, both when administered alone and when co-administered with a tetanus-diphtheria-acellular pertussis (Tdap) booster vaccine. The multi-center Phase 2b trial enrolled 366 participants across 16 sites in the United Kingdom, Australia, and Costa Rica and included participants
NIQ Brings New AI and Automation Capabilities to Retail Space Planning and Merchandising2.10.2026 13:45:00 EEST | Press release
NielsenIQ (NYSE: NIQ), a leading consumer intelligence company, today announced new AI and automation capabilities for NIQ Spaceman®, its retail space planning and merchandising platform trusted by more than 600 retailers across 65+ countries. The enhancements help retailers create store-specific planograms up to 50 times faster, identify execution and compliance gaps, and scale merchandising decisions across their store networks through expanded cloud-based access. "Retailers are under increasing pressure to localize assortments, execute consistently across stores, and respond more quickly to changing shopper behavior," said Natalie Williams, SVP, Product at NIQ. "These enhancements help simplify that process by embedding agentic AI directly into merchandising workflows and automating traditionally manual planning tasks. That means teams can spend less time building and updating planograms and more time acting on opportunities. With greater automation, retailers can improve productivi
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