Call for Code Finalists Announced

Last year, IBM joined forces with David Clark Cause to initiate a multi-year global initiative to rally software developers around the world to build practical, effective cloud, AI and other solutions that could help humans in disaster response situations.

The response both years has been tremendous, and the 2018 winner, “Project OWL,” resulted in an IoT and software solution that helps keep first responders and victims connected in a natural disaster.

Earlier today, the top five finalists in the Call for Code 2019 Global Challenge were announced, all of who are currently being evaluated by a distinguished panel of judges. 

Those solutions, and the teams who built them, arrived at some ingenious means by which technology can support disaster preparedness, response, and recovery efforts in this year’s challenge.

You can read about each of the finalists here, and then take the opportunity to vote for this year’s “People’s Choice Winner.”

GitLab’s Infusion

Big news on the developer tools front today.

Forbes is reporting DevOps player GitLab has raised $268M in a Series E round co-led by Iconiq Capital and Goldman Sachs at a $2.75B valuations. That more than doubles the valuation of its previous funding roundThe company is looking forward to a 2020 IPO, and interestingly has expanded in the direction of a no-office expansion (a sizable number of the company’s employees work remotely).

The company’s value prop is straightforward: GitLab helps companies build and release their own software faster, and in a more coordinated fashion (including bringing together groups as disparate as product, development, security, and operations). It offers two options: A free community edition, and a paid enterprise edition.

In a statement about the funding, GitLab indicated its plans were “to make all of our DevOps platform offerings, including monitoring, security, and planning, best in class so we can enable our enterprise customers to continue to bring products to market faster.”

The company claims that more than 100,000 organizations currently use GitLab, and the company’s annual recurring revenue growth rate is 143%, in a market that is expected to triple by 2023 (from $5.2 to $15B).

Gitty up!