Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said (opens in new tab) 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 (opens in new tab)(COVID-19) pandemic." Anyone can join the hackathon via Devpost (opens in new tab).
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 (opens in new tab), which uses CPU (opens in new tab)and GPU (opens in new tab)processing power to aid with medical research. And, hey, why not join the Tom's Hardware team (opens in new tab) in the process (and beat AnandTech too)?
