IBM launches initiative to recognise open-source talent in India

Technology giant IBM on Thursday announced a programme for Indian developers that aims to recognise talent in the open-source community.

Open source refers to software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified.

The India Developer Champions programme has been launched in co-operation with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and IT lobby Nasscom.

IBM said the initiative will create a unified platform to acknowledge developer work in open source, which it added is the key driving force behind new technologies.

“IBM wants to put a spotlight on the 23 million developers and data scientists in the world who work across industries and who, through their creativity and skill, are making a real difference to society,” said Bob Lord, IBM Senior Vice President, Cognitive Applications and Developer Ecosystems. “IBM Developer Champions programme will help shine a light on the significant contributions coming from open source developers in India – a massively-important market.”

Nominations are expected from individual developers as well as from enterprises and startups, IBM added.

The programme was announced during the IBM India Developer Day which was held in Bengaluru on Thursday. The annual event looks to enhance skills of developers in emerging technologies such as cloud, artificial intelligence, blockchain, data analytics and quantum computing.

IBM’s chief executive officer Ginni Rometty delivered the keynote address at the event, where she said that the US-headquartered giant was aiming to support open-source technologies while staying close to its three main principles -- open governance, open collaboration and giving back to the open-source community.   

Union IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that India’s Software Product Policy of 2019 would boost the demand for developers in the country and could potentially open up avenues for close to 3.5 million jobs by 2025.