Inspirational Stories of Social Impact Success Click to Commit - Call For Code

Where Tech Meets Purpose! Are you thinking about submitting an entry to this year’s Call for Code competition?

As the phase for submission fast draws to close, the time really is now to ‘Click to Commit’ your entries here! And to help inspire you, here are some inspirational stories of success from previous winners which brings to life the scalable real world impact you can make by taking part. Plus, some insights from the wonderful talent for the future – the voices and actions of brilliant children who I have loved working with, and who show just why this matters so much!  

Meet Agrolly, Call For Code Winners 2020

Today a vital 70% of food production across the world is provided by small and rural farmers, many of these are women, but the changing climate is causing vulnerabilities and issues with inability to adapt, for example with lack of access to technology to perform climate risk assessments. The result? A declination in crop yields, growing food inequalities and the real and present danger of individuals and communities being left behind. The solution? Meet Agrolly, a team of inspiring students from Mongolia, India, Taiwan and Brazil who are endeavouring to close the information gap. These 2020 Call for Code winners addressed the problem head on, envisaging a cloud-based solution to democratise the fight back against climate change to help small scale and rural farmers make more informed decisions.

Agrolly integrates technologies including IBM Cloud Object Storage, IBM Watson Studio and Assistant and The Weather Company to afford a full service solution to execute climate risk assessments. Since winning the competition, Agrolly have been greatly benefiting from not only $200K in funding alongside solution deployment support through IBM and The Linux Foundation, but also invaluable access to an active and passionately engaged network of educators and mentors. An example of a design thinking workshop between the IBM Service Corps team and Agrolly documenting users, hills and tech needs is shown below – authentic collaboration and co-creation in action for scalable sustainable change!

Agrolly is already creating impact to last, building out infrastructure and hiring local staff on the ground across different markets to iteratively innovate their solution based on direct feedback - and now having trained 500+ rural farmers hands-on! This is a great example of contributing to addressing the issue of Zero Hunger, one of the key challenges in Call for Code 2021. Supporting communities to harness data insights from the environment can enhance crop resilience and overall yield for sustainable food production systems, improving access to food. And there is an additional benefit too, that of contributing to inclusion and economic empowerment. As Chimka Munkhbayar, co-founder and COO of Agrolly describes:

‘Agrolly can give rural women farmers more knowledge and awareness to participate in the decision-making process. Women farmers will be able to create their own networks through the app and learn about the farming management and market information that could empower them to take a larger role in the farming business.’

The Agrolly app is available to download for free now in the Google Play Store, with availability in the Apple App Store coming very soon. And to find out more about the actual experience of taking part in the challenge, this is a fantastic podcast to listen to, especially concerning top tips on joining a team, from using the slack workspace to exploring other channels to find members. From subject matter experts to UX designers, connecting with the right collaborators is imperative to success – and of course having fun along the way! 

Tech Integration for Shared Value Change

And there are many other technologies, and indeed technology integrations that can make a difference too. This could range from the use of blockchain to help ‘track and trace’ the distribution of food to the right place at the right place based on genuine data and its validation, enabling a decentralised food distribution network. And reflecting on another theme of this year’s Call for Code, Clean Water and Sanitation, the use of sensor technology and Artificial Intelligence can afford real time active solutions to encourage optimal water choices by consumers and local government alike, from intelligent solutions for small farmers to recycling showers, essentially incentivising water sustainability which is vital for scale.

Further and enabling the third focus of Call for Code 2021, Responsible Production and Green Consumption, technology can support change in a myriad of ways from using AI for recommendations on energy efficiency, to highlighting the carbon footprint of online purchases, enabling a more conscious consumerism that affects long term behaviour change. Massive! But what other ideas can you envisage? What are this year’s solutions yet to be invented? Do not forget to ‘Click and Commit’ to change! And for still more inspiration, details of all 5 Global 2020 winners can be found here alongside the dedicated university track as well, a wonderful starting point for student entries.

And finally, if you are still thinking about whether to take part, here’s one further inspiration for you. I have been working with a number of schools to explore the aspirations of children for the future of our world. For me this year’s Call for Code campaign is all about  making climate protection measurable, inclusion and diversity visible and ethical responsibilities transparent. In the conversations and activities with these amazing children, their vision for the future has commitment to sustainable impact intrinsically front and centre, and moreover with a huge and contagious positivity about what can be achieved. It’s a can-do attitude personified! More of these activities are coming very soon, including SDG hackathons and in essence a junior version of Call For Code! Let’s lead by their example and help make an impact today. Join us because together we can make a difference to solving one of the greatest challenges of our time, Climate Change. I really think these pictures by Rhian, Age 11 says it All, thanks for reading and looking forward to your contributions, Sally.

‘Today’ by Rhian

‘Protect Our Tomorrow’ by Rhian

About the Author

Dr. Sally Eaves is a highly experienced Chief Technology Officer, Professor in Advanced Technologies and a Global Strategic Advisor on Digital Transformation specialising in the application of emergent technologies, notably AI, FinTech, Blockchain & 5G disciplines, for business transformation and social impact at scale. An international Keynote Speaker and Author, Sally was an inaugural recipient of the Frontier Technology and Social Impact award, presented at the United Nations in 2018 and has been described as the ‘torchbearer for ethical tech’ founding Aspirational Futures to enhance inclusion, diversity and belonging in the technology space and beyond.