Samsung Electronics and IBM have announced the Call for Code Honoring Everyday Heroes Challenge for enterprise developers to encourage the development of new technology solutions to help everyday heroes.

The Challenge, which was unveiled during the Samsung Developer Conference (SDC), will look to address challenges faced by delivery personnel, childcare workers, healthcare frontline workers, educators and many more who have been invaluable to society during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Samsung said in a statement released on Wednesday, October 27, 2021, that application submissions will be evaluated by a judging panel from IBM and Samsung and the winner will receive a cash prize, Samsung devices and deployment support for their solution.

The Challenge, according to Samsung, is part of the broader ‘Call for Code global program’, which invites developers and problem solvers around the world to build and contribute to open source technology projects that address some of the most pressing global issues.

Need for open innovation

KC Choi, EVP and Head of Global Mobile B2B Team, Samsung Electronics, highlighted the significant contributions of ‘everyday heroes’ and the need to honor them.

“Our everyday heroes have tirelessly served us throughout the pandemic and we want to make their lives, and the lives of others around the world, easier and productive with new levels of connectivity and insights from technology. To achieve this, innovation must be open. That’s why we’ve been working closely with IBM as well as our valued developer communities using open source platforms”.
KC Choi

According to Samsung, submissions for the Call for ‘Code Honoring Everyday Heroes Challenge’ must be able to run on a Samsung tablet, smartphone and/or wearable device and make use of one or more IBM open hybrid cloud technologies such as IBM Cloud or IBM Watson.

Participants will also have access to Samsung toolkits, as well as data from The Weather Company. The deadline for submissions is 20^th November 2021, with the winner announced on 9^th December 2021. In addition to Samsung technology and a cash prize from IBM, the winner will receive support from both companies to help bring their solution to life to make a real difference for everyday heroes.

“IBM and Samsung have a long history of proven success working together to improve business outcomes for clients and also for social good. Earlier this year, IBM, Samsung and others, worked together to deploy the 2019 Call for Code Global Challenge winning solution, Prometeo. I look forward to seeing how developers can use our open technologies now to benefit some of the most deserving people in the world today, our everyday heroes”.
Bob Lord, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Ecosystems at IBM

Over 30 years of partnership between Samsung and IBM

The partnership between Samsung and IBM extends over 30 years, starting with work on semiconductors and now mobility, AI, 5G, Industry 4.0 and networks, the statement stated. At the SDC, Samsung and IBM Consulting announced a collaboration to modernize hybrid work environments with mobile experiences optimized for the Galaxy Z Fold3, co-designed with major financial services institutions.

Additionally, to accelerate the convergence of Industry 4.0 between cloud-native applications and mobility, the statement highlighted that IBM and Samsung are researching ways to bring containerized AI workloads to Samsung Android devices with IBM Edge Application Manager. This effort focuses on using containers on Samsung devices to enable workloads to be flexibly deployed, managed and processed across premises such as factories, retail stores, warehouses, hotels and distribution centers to help drive faster development of powerful new use cases for mobile and edge computing.

Samsung and IBM continue to work together to create services that enable businesses and enterprise developers to take full advantage of cutting-edge networks, mobility and analytics, the two companies assured.