Climate change is undeniably happening and it is expected to hit poorer and developing countries the hardest. It is well known now that its effects, such as higher temperatures, changes in precipitation patterns, rising sea levels and more frequent weather-related disasters pose risks for agriculture, food and water supplies. All organizations, large and small, are getting involved on the fight to stop climate change through mitigation and adaptation. Read on to see details of an Apps for Climate Competition, launched by the World Bank, that aims to bring together the best ideas from scientists, application developers, civil society organizations and development practitioners to develop innovative apps using World Bank data.
The World Bank Apps For Climate Competition was launched at the recent Durban climate conference, as part of its Open Climate Data Initiative, which aims to make it easier to access and use climate information from various sources, including the Bank's open data catalogue.
The competition challenges scientists, software developers, development practitioners and others to develop software applications related to climate change. The applications should serve to raise awareness, measure progress, or to help in some other way to address the development challenges of climate change. Submissions may be any kind of software application, be it for the web, a personal computer, a mobile handheld device, console, SMS, or any software platform widely available to the public. The only other requirement is that the proposed application use one or more datasets from the World Bank Data Catalogue available at data.worldbank.org or the Climate Change Knowledge Portal at climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org.
Apps For Climate is open to individuals, teams, and organizations. Winners will receive cash prizes (First Prize – $15,000 USD; Second Prize – $10,000 USD and Third Prize – $5,000 USD ) and have their application featured by the World Bank. The submission deadline is March 16th, 2012, and winners will be announced in June 2012.
More information, including criteria, official rules, and updates is available at http://worldbank.org/appsforclimate or on Twitter at #app4climate.
Link to resources page for developers, contestants, bloggers, journalists, etc.