A Personal Technology for Good Redux: Call for Code

July 12, 2018 / G C Network / Comments Off on A Personal Technology for Good Redux: Call for Code

International Public Sector Cloud Computing Summit in DC

By G C Network | March 7, 2012

Next week at the Hyatt Regency in reston, Virginia, the Cloud Standards Customer Council will be holding it’s Public Sector Cloud Summit. This two day cloud event will feature international public sector Cloud…

Jill T. Singer, NRO CIO, Named One of 10 Top Women in Cloud Computing !!

By G C Network | February 17, 2012

CONGRATULATIONS to National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) CIO Jill T. Singer for being selected as one of the 10 winners of the first annual CloudNOW awards presented at the Cloud Connect Conference in…

NJVC® and Virtual Global Announce Release of PaaS White Paper: Paper Clarifies the Confusion Surrounding PaaS for Federal IT Buyers—Why It Is Important and How It Can Cut Development Costs by 50 Percent

By G C Network | January 27, 2012

VIENNA, Va., Jan. 23, 2012 —NJVC®, one of the largest information technology solutions providers supporting the U.S. Department of Defense, and Virtual Global, a premier provider of software and cloud…

December 2011: GovCloud Moves From Policy to Law

By G C Network | December 27, 2011

Over the past years, government cloud computing has steadily moved forward from it’s early beginnings as an interesting curiosity: December 23, 2008 – Now really. Should the Obama administration use…

GovCloud.com !! The New Hub for Government Cloud Computing

By G C Network | November 17, 2011

It gives me great pleasure to announce the relaunch of GovCloud.com! GovCloud is the “go to” place for everything related to federal cloud computing. Our mission is to help federal…

Backupify Names Top 10 Cloud Computing Experts to Follow on Twitter

By G C Network | November 15, 2011

THANK YOU BACKUPIFY!!!! Thank you for the honor of being on your Top 10 List! Backupify is the leading backup provider for cloud based data, offering an all-in-one archiving, search…

NJVC® Cloud Computing Expert Kevin Jackson to Speak at NIST Cloud Computing Forum & Workshop IV on Nov. 3 in Gaithersburg, Md.

By G C Network | October 29, 2011

VIENNA, Va., Oct. 28, 2011 — NJVC®, one of the largest information technology solutions providers supporting the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) , is pleased to announce that Kevin Jackson,…

NJVC® General Manager, Cloud Services, Kevin Jackson to Moderate “Cloud Computing and the Intelligence Mission” Panel at GEOINT 2011 Symposium

By G C Network | October 18, 2011

Vienna, Va., Oct. 13, 2011 — NJVC® , one of the largest information technology (IT) solutions providers supporting the U.S. Department of Defense, is pleased to announce that Kevin Jackson,…

NJVC® Spotlights Cyber Security and Automated IT at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo® 2011

By G C Network | October 14, 2011

VIENNA, Va., Oct. 4, 2011 — NJVC®, one of the largest information technology solutions providers supporting the Department of Defense, announces its lineup for the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo®, Oct. 16 –…

NJVC® to Demonstrate Enterprise Automation at GEOINT 2011

By G C Network | October 10, 2011

VIENNA, Va., Oct. 6, 2011 — NJVC®, one of the largest information technology solutions (IT) providers supporting the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), is pleased to offer live, compelling demonstrations…

In 2013 I had the opportunity to manage a $2M demonstration of how cloud computing could be used to support natural disasters. In that NCOIC Geospatial Community Cloud (GCC) demonstration, multiple regional clouds were managed using a cloud brokerage platform in a simulated response to a massive earthquake. Modeled after the disaster that struck Haiti in 2010, the project showed how interoperability and movement of data in an open, cloud-based infrastructure could be used to deliver a global, multidisciplinary disaster response capability. The relief simulation also showed government leaders how data sources from a variety of organizations coupled with cloud technology could improve capability and effectiveness while reducing cost, time and risk. These were critical lessons that, back then, I looked forward to maturing.
Now it’s 2018, and technology advances have continued to revolutionize our society.  The democratization of data and information have since changed our lives in many unexpected ways.  A sad fact though is that, although some government leaders have tried, our global society has not yet found a way to institutionalize the lessons we learned back then.  While cloud computing continues to upend industry norms, the disaster response community is still stuck with antiquated processes and technologies.  This unfortunate reality is but one reason why I have decided to put my energy behind the “Call for Code” initiative.
 
IBM is the founding member of the Call for Code Global Initiative, which was created by David Clark, a renowned leader in cause-related initiatives. David Clark’s work includes iconic people and humanitarian organizations, such as President Nelson Mandela, Muhammad Ali, Prince, the United Nations, Amnesty International, and The Anne Frank Center.  The Call for Code Global Challengeis designed to leverage technology for good by asking software developers to create solutions that significantly improve preparedness for natural disasters and relief. This competition encourages developers who want to pay their skills forward for a specific mission to alleviate human suffering.  A broad cross-section of experts humanitarian and international organizations are supporting this initiative which includes the United Nations Human Rights Office and the American Red Cross’
GRAMMY nominatedsongtress Andra Day

International team. They will also benefit from the inaugural Call for Code Global Prize Event & Concert on October 13th, United Nations International Day for Disaster Reduction.  The initiative also boasts some star power with GRAMMY-nominated singer and human rights advocate Andra Day, whose 2015 global smash hit song “Rise Up” quickly became the voice for the voiceless, leading a celebrity coalition.

 

Another motivation for joining this initiative was a recent video from Brad Kieserman, Red Cross Vice President of Disaster Operations and Logistics.  In that video, he highlighted the importance of visualizing data in a way that helped responders make better decisions about the movement of resources during a disaster.  His vision of using technology to address unmet disaster need for me pointed out the value of the cloud as the application delivery platform and data repository.  The same value proposition we proved back in 2013.
 
Brad Kieserman, Red Cross Vice President of Disaster Operations and Logistics
Over the next few months I will be blogging, tweeting, podcasting and vlogging on the many “Call for Code” activities and events.  Please join me in supporting this effort by retweeting, liking and reposting this content to your friends.
Let’s all work together to help each other when disaster strikes.

This post was brought to you by IBM Developerworks. For more content like this, visit https://developer.ibm.com/code/

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