COVID-19 Global Hackathon: Microsoft, WHO Code Against Coronavirus
Tech companies, WHO and software engineers have joined the COVID-19 Global Hackathon.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said yesterday that his company, Microsoft and other tech companies, including Slack, Pinterest and Twitter, are lending their support to the COVID-19 Global Hackathon.
The hackathon invites software engineers to "build software solutions that drive social impact, with the aim of tackling some of the challenges related to the current coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic." Anyone can join the hackathon via Devpost.
Zuckerberg said the COVID-19 Global Hackathon will also offer guidance from the World Health Organization (WHO), the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub and "experts from other industries" who can tell participants where their efforts will be most appreciated.
The hackathon's organizers advised participants to focus on six key themes: health, vulnerable populations, businesses, community, education and entertainment. (Then, as if those weren't broad enough, they included a seventh "other" theme.)
COVID-19 Global Hackathon participants have until March 30 to submit their projects with a two-minute video walkthrough. The hackathon's judges, who haven't yet been selected, will decide on the winners in the week leading up to April 3.
Anyone who wants to help fight COVID-19 without participating in a hackathon can do so via Folding@Home, which uses CPU and GPU processing power to aid with medical research. And, hey, why not join the Tom's Hardware team in the process (and beat AnandTech too)?
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Nathaniel Mott is a freelance news and features writer for Tom's Hardware US, covering breaking news, security, and the silliest aspects of the tech industry.
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bit_user Not to suggest this wouldn't be worth doing for its intrinsic value, but are there prizes of any sort? Just curious.Reply
Often, the point of such prizes is to seed or fund a scaled-up implementation of the project.