OTTAWA, Aug. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Eclipse Foundation, the platform for open collaboration and innovation, today announced that it is joining the Call for Code initiative with Founding Partner IBM to use the power of open source software and a global collaborative community of developers to help people around the world better prevent, respond to, and recover from natural disasters.

The Call for Code Global Challenge, created by David Clark Cause  and powered by IBM , has more than 35 organizations asking developers to create solutions that significantly improve natural disaster preparedness and relief. This competition is the first of its kind at this global scale, encouraging developers worldwide who want to give back to their communities open software solutions that alleviate human suffering.

"Since its inception in 2004, the Eclipse Foundation has been a leader in open source collaboration and innovation, and I'm excited that they are answering the call", said Todd Moore, VP of Open Technology, Digital Business Group at IBM. "The Foundation has grown to include over 350 open source projects across a wide variety of technical domains, and reaches millions of developers. By joining Call for Code, the Eclipse global community has the opportunity to make a difference in natural disaster preparedness."

“Open source software is a force for positive change in the world, and the Call for Code initiative takes that to the next level ,” said Mike Milinkovich, Executive Director of the Eclipse Foundation. “The Eclipse Foundation and IBM have a 15 year history, and we’re honored to be working with them and the other partners in this initiative to help communities dealing with natural disasters.”

United Nations Human Rights and the American Red Cross are the charitable partners of Call for Code. The inaugural Call for Code Global First Place Prize is $200,000, and will be presented at a benefit concert at The Regency Ballroom in San Francisco on October 29, 2018. To get involved and start building today, visit CallforCode.org .

About the Eclipse Foundation

The Eclipse Foundation provides our global community of individuals and organizations with a mature, scalable, and commercially focused environment for open source software collaboration and innovation. The Foundation is home to the Eclipse IDE, Jakarta EE, and over 350 open source projects, including runtimes, tools and frameworks for a wide range of technology domains such as IoT, automotive, geospatial, systems engineering, and many others. The Eclipse Foundation is a not-for-profit organization supported by over 275 members, including industry leaders who value open source as a key enabler for business strategy. To learn more, follow us on Twitter @EclipseFdn, LinkedIn or visit eclipse.org.

Editorial Contact Lonn Johnston (for Eclipse Foundation) +1 650.219.7764 lonn@flak42.com