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Starting in Puerto Rico, IBM’s new Code and Response™ deployment initiative will build, fortify, test, and implement open source technology solutions at scale to speed recovery in the wake of natural disasters

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 12, 2019  — Think 2019 — IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced Code and Response, a new $25 million, four-year deployment initiative to put open source technologies developed as part of coding challenges such as Call for Code in the communities where they are needed most. Code and Response includes resources to build, fortify, test, and implement solutions at scale. The initiative is supported by hundreds of IBMers as part of the IBM Corporate Service Corps, as well as government and NGO partners to put those technologies to work saving lives. A new partnership with the Clinton Global Initiative University will also help provide college-age developers with the skills and resources they need to turn their ideas into action. In its first year, Code and Response will pilot Project Owl, the winning solution from Call for Code 2018, in disaster-struck regions like Puerto Rico, North Carolina, Osaka, and Kerala.

Code and Response will include implementation partners such as the non-profit Information Technology Disaster Resource Center who will offer feedback on Project Owl’s hardware and software configuration. The ITDRC will provide valuable guidance in Puerto Rico based on their extensive experience restoring network access on the island since hurricanes Irma and Maria.

“Generating ideas through challenges is not enough,” said Bob Lord, IBM Senior Vice President, Cognitive Applications and Developer Ecosystems. “Every year natural disasters affect close to 160 million people worldwide. To take a huge leap forward in effective disaster response, we must tap into the global open source ecosystem to generate sustainable solutions we can scale and deploy in the field. But we cannot do it alone. It is only by working with venerable partners like the American Red Cross that we will see these technologies really come to life.”

“The Red Cross is thrilled that IBM is continuing to dedicate resources to help those affected by natural disasters,” said Gail McGovern, American Red Cross President and CEO. “Our organization is relying on inventors and innovative companies like IBM to advance the fight against natural disasters by fostering new ideas that will make a real difference in peoples’ lives.”

Following a highly successful first year when more than 100,000 developers submitted thousands of ideas for saving lives in the face of natural disasters, IBM Chairman, President and CEO Ginni Rometty announced Call for Code 2019, reaffirming the company’s five-year, $30 million commitment to social impact coding challenges. The goal is once again to unite the world’s 23 million developers and data scientists to unleash the power of cloud, AI, blockchain and IoT technologies to create sustainable and scalable open source technologies. The emphasis this year is on the health and well-being of individuals and communities threatened by natural disasters.

Call for Code Creator David Clark Cause and Founding Partner IBM will once again team with Charitable Partners United Nations Human Rights and American Red Cross, as well as The Linux Foundation on the Call for Code Challenge. In its second year, Call for Code welcomes new supporters Consumer Technology Association Foundation, Kaiser Permanente and Apttus, and continued support from Delta Air Lines, Johnson & Johnson, Persistent Systems and others. Call for Code is pleased to also receive continued support from the following additional open source foundations and their respective community members: the Cloud Foundry Foundation, the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, the Eclipse Foundation and the Node JS Foundation.

“We’re overwhelmed by the success of Call for Code and applaud IBM and their Code and Response initiative,” said David Clark, CEO of David Clark Cause. “Code and Response demonstrates IBM’s commitment to impacting real change in people’s lives by turning ideas into reality. We’re proud to have IBM as the Founding Partner of Call for Code and excited to continue inspiring developers to create solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges.”

Tools and services designed to help businesses deploy new applications across hybrid cloud environments with security and efficiency

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 12, 2019 — IBM Think — IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced new hybrid cloud offerings to help businesses migrate, integrate and manage applications and workloads seamlessly and with security across any public or private cloud and on-premises IT environment.

How IBM Hybrid Clouds Drive Innovation While Managing Complexity

The IBM Institute for Business Value estimates that by 2021, 98 percent of organizations surveyed plan to adopt hybrid architectures, but just 38 percent will have the procedures and tools they need to operate that environment¹. The process today is challenging because it is largely manual with major security implications and a lack of consistent management and integration tools.

As part of today’s news, IBM is launching new hybrid cloud tools and services designed to help enterprises navigate the complexities of this new landscape:

• New IBM Cloud Integration Platform designed to reduce time and complexity to launch new services and applications across cloud environments in a consistent and secure manner.
• New IBM Services designed to advise on holistic cloud strategies.
• New IBM Services designed to simplify the management of resources across cloud environments.
• New services designed to provide industry-leading security for data and applications in the public cloud.

“At Aetna, a CVS Health business, we see hybrid cloud as an integral part of our transformation journey,” said Claus Torp Jensen, Chief Technology Officer, Aetna. “We want to use the best services from various cloud providers to create a seamless consumer experience and digitalize underlying business processes. For that, we are taking an API-centric approach to integration and making sure that all of our APIs are easily accessible across our hybrid cloud ecosystem.”

New Cloud Integration Platform Designed to Dramatically Reduce Coding Time, Complexity

The IBM Cloud Integration Platform is designed to securely connect applications, software and services from any vendor regardless of whether those systems are on-premises, in a public cloud or a private cloud. The platform brings together a comprehensive set of integration tools in a single development environment. It can help improve productivity because integration specialists can write, test and secure code once, store it in the platform and reuse it – an arduous task that once monopolized their time. This can help companies cut the time and cost of integration by 1/3, while staying within their unique requirements for security and compliance².

Integration is critical as enterprises optimize business processes and create more personalized customer experiences. However, integration is becoming increasingly complex because many enterprises surveyed are already using between two to 15 different clouds and want to deploy new cloud services such as AI, analytics and blockchain to stay ahead of the competition³.

With the IBM Cloud Integration Platform, companies can quickly bring to market new capabilities while freeing up integration specialists to focus on the more complex, system-level integrations.

“Most large organizations have data and workloads spread across multiple public and private clouds, SaaS and on-premises environments – sometimes as a result of their business process infrastructure, but also for compliance, regulatory and data privacy reasons,” said Denis Kennelly, general manager, cloud integration, IBM. “The challenge in this environment is to overcome data and technology siloes to quickly deploy new business services and applications with security. Today, we are launching new capabilities designed to help unleash the full power of the hybrid cloud.”

New End-To-End IBM Hybrid Cloud Services 

IBM is launching new IBM Services for Cloud Strategy and Design, a comprehensive set of services designed to advise clients on how to architect the right holistic cloud strategy from design, migration, integration, road mapping and architectural services to navigating their journey to cloud. IBM Services is establishing dedicated teams of consultants who are certified experts in the latest services and technologies across multiple cloud platforms.  Teams will use open and secure multicloud strategies, drawing upon IBM’s experience in IT transformation and collaboration with an ecosystem of cloud partners. The new services leverage IBM’s industry-leading Cloud Innovate method, automated decision accelerators and IBM Cloud Garage approach to support clients with co-creation and scaled innovation in application development, migration, modernization and management.

Building off of a recent partnership expansion announcement with ServiceNow, IBM is also introducing new IBM Services for Multicloud Management to provide a single system to help enterprises simplify the management of their IT resources across multiple cloud providers, on-premises environments and private clouds.

The delivery of IBM Services for Multicloud Management includes three layers designed to provide a single management and operations system:

• Business management – applications that provide digital service ordering, modern service management, and cost governance to help manage spend;
• Orchestration – an automation layer that helps enable services of different types, from different vendors to be integrated easily and made available to consumers;
• Operations – a layer that helps enable infrastructure and operations administrators to monitor and maintain systems, including legacy infrastructure, private cloud, public cloud and container environments.

In addition, it includes a unified, self-service experience to users to facilitate faster and easier access to cloud services via an environment integrated with the ServiceNow Portal to configure and buy cloud services and solutions from multiple cloud providers. It also provides performance management services and offers the means to monitor and manage the health of the cloud.

“As we grow our digital business, moving our applications to the cloud is critical to help modernize our processes and deliver even better experiences for our customers. Adopting the right strategy and migration approach to cloud needs to be seamless and requires an understanding of our IT landscape,” said Sarp Uzkan, vice president, IT, Tribune Publishing. “IBM cloud advisory services and tools provided a detailed assessment that determined not only which applications would be best to move to the cloud but a strong business case that would meet our needs and enabling us to explore the best approach for moving to the cloud.”

McCormick products developed with AI technology from IBM Research will hit the market by mid-2019

HUNT VALLEY, Md. and YORKTOWN HEIGHTS, NY, — McCormick & Company, Incorporated (NYSE: MKC), a global leader in flavor, and IBM (NYSE: IBM) today publicly announced their ongoing research collaboration to pioneer the application of artificial intelligence (AI) for flavor and food product development.

Using IBM Research AI for Product Composition, McCormick is ushering in a new era of flavor innovation and changing the course of the industry. Product developers across McCormick’s global workforce will be able to explore flavor territories more quickly and efficiently using AI to learn and predict new flavor combinations from hundreds of millions of data points across the areas of sensory science, consumer preference and flavor palettes. This proprietary, cutting-edge technology sets McCormick apart in its ability to develop more creative, better tasting products and new flavor experiences across both its Consumer and Flavor Solutions business units.

McCormick expects to launch its first AI-enabled product platform, “ONE,” by mid-2019, with a set of initial one-dish Recipe Mix flavors including Tuscan Chicken, Bourbon Pork Tenderloin and New Orleans Sausage. The company’s flavor developers created this product platform by combining IBM’s expertise in AI and machine learning with McCormick’s 40+ years of proprietary sensory science and taste data, which includes decades of past product formulas and millions of data points related to consumer taste preferences and palettes. AI has enabled McCormick’s product developers access to an expanded portfolio of flavor profiles that enhances their creativity. The new ONE platform was specifically developed to deliver family-favorite flavors with the ability to season both the protein and vegetable. The new seasoning blends expect to be on U.S. retail shelves by late spring.

“McCormick’s use of artificial intelligence highlights our commitment to insight-driven innovation and the application of the most forward-looking technologies to continually enhance our products and bring new flavors to market,” said McCormick Chairman, President and CEO Lawrence Kurzius. “This is one of several projects in our pipeline where we’ve embraced new and emerging technologies.”

As a world leader in artificial intelligence software, services and technology for business, IBM is focused on working with clients and enterprises across many industry sectors to help advance data-driven technologies that push markets forward.

“IBM Research’s collaboration with McCormick illustrates our commitment to helping our clients and partners drive innovation across industries,” said Kathryn Guarini, VP, Industry Research, IBM. “By combining McCormick’s deep data and expertise in science and taste, with IBM’s AI capabilities, we are working together to unlock the bounds of creativity and transform the food and flavor development process.”

Pairing McCormick’s global expertise, particularly that of its research and product development teams, with leading AI research helped McCormick accelerate the speed of flavor innovation by up to three times and deliver highly effective, consumer-preferred formulas. Through the ONE platform as well as several other projects in the pipeline, McCormick’s product developers are now using AI to unlock creativity, access new insights and share data with their peers around the world. The company plans to scale this technology globally by 2021.

Inclusive blockchain-based ecosystem to be designed to enable healthcare companies to build, share, and deploy solutions that drive digital transformation

ARMONK, N.Y.,  — Aetna, Anthem (NYSE: ANTM), Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC), PNC Bank (NYSE: PNC) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced a new collaboration to design and create a network using blockchain technology to improve transparency and interoperability in the healthcare industry.  The aim is to create an inclusive blockchain network that can benefit multiple members of the healthcare ecosystem in a highly secure, shared environment. The goal is to allow the blockchain network to enable healthcare companies to build, share and deploy solutions that drive digital transformation in the industry.

Despite major initiatives to digitize healthcare information, major improvements in transparency and interoperability among various groups in the healthcare system are still necessary. By reducing administrative errors and friction through the application of blockchain technology, healthcare information could be exchanged more efficiently. These improvements, once realized could help enhance patient care and reduce unnecessary costs.

The collaboration members intend to use blockchain to address a range of industry challenges, including promoting efficient claims and payment processing, to enable secure and frictionless healthcare information exchanges, and to maintain current and accurate provider directories.

“We are committed to improving the healthcare consumer experience and making our healthcare system work more effectively,” said Claus Jensen, chief technology officer at Aetna, a CVS Health business. “Through the application of blockchain technology, we’ll work to improve data accuracy for providers, regulators, and other stakeholders, and give our members more control over their own data.”

“At Anthem, we recognize the importance of driving change that will simplify the healthcare system for all Americans,” said Rajeev Ronanki, Chief Digital Officer of Anthem, Inc. “We view Blockchain as an enabler for establishing trust. Timely access to medical information has been a stumbling block for creating a seamless consumer experience. With a trusted foundation based on transparency and cryptography, we will provide a faster, safer and more secure way to exchange medical information to transform the  consumer healthcare experience.”

“HCSC is continuously exploring how technology and data can improve the lives of our members by reducing fragmentation of information and connecting parts of the health care system,” said Steve Betts, senior vice president and chief information officer, HCSC. “We are proud to be part of this collaboration focused on enhancing technical knowledge, understanding capabilities and unlocking the possibilities to drive quality, affordable care.”

“Blockchain’s unique attributes make it suitable for large networks of members to quickly exchange sensitive data in a permissioned, controlled, and transparent way,” said Lori Steele, general manager for Healthcare and Life Sciences for IBM. “The fact that these major healthcare players have come together to collaborate indicates the value they see in working together to explore new models that we think could drive more efficiency in the healthcare system and ultimately improve the patient experience.”

“This collaboration will enable healthcare-related data and business transactions to occur in way that addresses market demands for transparency and security, while making it easier for the patient, payer and provider to handle payments” said Chris Ward, head of product, PNC Treasury Management. “Using this technology, we can remove friction, duplication, and administrative costs that continue to plague the industry.”

Aetna, Anthem, HCSC, PNC Bank, and IBM are actively working to further define the initial use cases for the health utility network. The collaboration will add additional members to the network in the coming months including other health organizations, healthcare providers, startups, and technology companies.

Goldcorp, ING Bank, Kutcho Copper, Ocean Partners and Wheaton Precious Metals Collaborate with MineHub on Industry-Wide Approach to Enhance Efficiency in Mining

VANCOUVER, British Columbia and ARMONK, N.Y., — MineHub Technologies, Inc. (“MineHub”) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced a collaboration to use blockchain technology to help improve operational efficiencies, logistics and financing and reduce costs in the high-value mineral concentrates supply chain — from mine to end buyer.

Goldcorp Inc. (TSX: G), ING Bank (NYSE: ING), Kutcho Copper Corp. (TSXV: KC), Ocean Partners USA Inc. and Wheaton Precious Metals Corp. (TSX: WPM) are working with mining technology company MineHub to build the new mining supply chain solution on top of the IBM Blockchain Platform.

The $1.8 trillion* global mining and metals market has traditionally suffered from inefficiencies due to manual, paper-based processes and a lack of transparency between supply chain participants. Blockchain technology helps address this by providing a shared ledger to create a single, real time view of transactions and data across the supply chain that can be seen by all permissioned participants. Each of the participating companies represent key areas of the supply chain from mining, streaming, trade and finance.

“We are delighted to be working with some of the most forward thinking and innovative companies from each area of the mining and metals industry. By digitizing the supply chain, we can increase the level of automation, reduce reliance on intermediaries and increase the speed at which goods are transferred from miners to end buyers. This creates the opportunity for transformative efficiencies and cost reductions throughout all aspects of operations,” said Vince Sorace, Founder and CEO of MineHub. “This is a significant advancement for an industry looking to integrate and use data in ways not previously possible.”

The first use case will be built on the MineHub platform and will manage concentrate from Goldcorp’s Penasquito Mine in Mexico throughout its path to market. When ore is mined, the mining company will upload data, including sustainability and ethical practices, allowing independent verification from regulators to end users as required. When materials are loaded for transport, the MineHub platform can record each transaction and allow permissioned parties to view and reconcile information throughout its journey. Smart contracts for supply chain processes such as trade finance, streaming and royalty contracts will be used by companies such as Wheaton Precious Metals and other institutions who provide credit facilities such as ING Bank in connection with the Penasquito Mine.

Arnout van Heukelem, Global Head of Metals and Mining at ING said, “As a global leader in banking in the metals and mining sector, we feel many of the operational challenges that our clients face. Blockchain has the potential to reduce or even overcome these, as shown by our pioneering work in energy with VAKT, in trade finance with Komgo and Voltron, and in the soft commodity sector. I am excited to be working together with MineHub and help our clients in metals and mining lower costs, increase transparency and contribute to sustainable production and trading.”

The MineHub supply chain platform is built on the cloud-based IBM Blockchain Platform, powered by the Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger Fabric. MineHub plans to expand the collaboration to additional members across the mining industry to encourage innovation and new applications using the technology.

“Blockchain technology can serve as the foundation for transforming entire business processes in the mining industry while creating greater transparency across the supply chain,” said Manish Chawla, general manager, Global Industrial Products, IBM. “By bringing together stakeholders at different points across the mining and minerals supply chain, MineHub is building a platform that has the potential to bring new levels of efficiency and trust to the mining industry.”

MineHub and IBM plan to work together to collaborate on new ways to scale and expand the platform, identify new use cases, and incorporate innovative technologies into the platform in the future.

IBM and NRF study finds 85 percent of global retail industry preparing for intelligent automation within three years to improve worker and business performance

NEW YORK,  — NRF 2019, NYC — Today at the National Retail Federation’s 2019 Big Show, IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced the latest findings of a study into the Retail & Consumer Industry and launched new AI-powered innovations to help the retail industry accelerate customer experience by providing tools designed to optimize worker and business performance. At the heart of this is retail’s growing adoption of intelligent automation, defined as the convergence of people, processes, automation, and AI.

This represents a watershed moment for the industry as human capabilities can be augmented to help reduce errors, while enabling a culture of digital operations and customer experience innovations. Spearheading this transformation is IBM Order Management with Watson Order Optimizer, and IBM MetroPulse, which help retailers improve omni-channel profitability and customer satisfaction.

IBM MetroPulse Product Sentiment

IBM AI Revolution

As the next generation of customers expects brands to provide unmatched experiential design and functionality across multiple interfaces, retaining customer loyalty requires retailers and manufacturers to implement cognitive, automated services while still remaining transparent and secure.

Developed with the National Retail Federation, IBM’s Institute for Business Value released the findings of its latest report, ‘The coming AI revolution in retail and consumer products,‘ which surveyed 1,900 Retail and Consumer Products leaders across 23 countries.  The survey reveals:

• 85 percent of retail and 79 percent of consumer products companies surveyed plan to be using intelligent automation for supply chain planning by 2021.
• 79 percent of retail and consumer products companies surveyed expect to be using intelligent automation for customer intelligence by 2021.
• Retail and consumer products executives surveyed project that intelligent automation capabilities could help increase annual revenue growth by up to 10 percent.

“The changing landscape across today’s retail and consumer industries has resulted in a rapid rise of emerging technologies, especially when it comes to Automation and Artificial Intelligence. Retail is one of the sectors to already implement and invest in cognitive and AI technologies, resulting in new and unexpected offerings for consumers and shoppers around the world,” said Luq Niazi, Global Managing Director, IBM Consumer Industries.

Niazi added, “Throughout the entire value chain and operational infrastructure of B2B and B2C commerce, there has already been an increased adoption and demand for Intelligent Automation. This also brings forth the need for stronger transparency, ethical practices and business prioritization to evaluate and deploy AI responsibility. Working with the right partners and third-party experts can result in acceleration of digital services, capabilities and customer experience and business efficiency for retailers of all sizes.”

“Retailers are increasingly using innovative technologies to offer new ways to shop both online and in-store and provide rewarding careers for employees. From reducing shipping costs and improving supply chain efficiency to personalizing shopping experiences and helping workers acquire new skills, AI technologies allow retailers to compete in the 21st century economy and better serve their customers. This is what the future of retail looks like,” said NRF VP of Research Development and Industry Analysis Mark Mathews.

Leading French retailer Casino Group is already using Intelligent Automation in their operations. Cyril Bourgois, Chief Digital Officer, Groupe Casino, commented that “as the gap between brick-and-mortar and digital stores closes, physical and digital distribution channels will not only need to adapt to tastes and trends but also to anticipate them. This requires an entirely new mindset based on constant adaptation, with a view to more effectively anticipating and meeting consumer expectations while maintaining close, trusting relationships with the customers.”

New AI-Powered Innovations for IBM Order Management –Putting Fulfillment at the Heart of the Customer Experience

New AI-powered innovations from IBM Order Management (OMS) are designed to help organizations improve omni-channel profitability and customer experience. The AI-powered Watson Order Optimization capabilities integrated with OMS can help increase purchase conversions by quickly adapting to seasonal fluctuations, while scaling fulfillment capacity. This supports increased yet regionally varied customer demand.

As the only solution of its kind, omni-channel fulfillment practitioners can increase collaboration across store ops, merchandising, supply chain and IT to save time and improve business performance. Order Optimizer’s new predictive models factor seasonality as it learns daily sell-through patterns, using data from across the fulfillment network to help organizations identify where to best source an order. Additionally, new carrier optimization capabilities can help reduce shipping costs by automatically issuing alternative carrier options to fulfill orders if weight or dimension limits are exceeded for the initial carrier’s restrictions.

These innovations build on the integration of IBM Order Optimizer’s business user controls UI and resolution rooms within Watson Supply Chain Insights. This provides ‘one source of truth’ to help fulfillment leaders analyze the impact to customer experience, SLAs and conversions, while facilitating collaboration among external suppliers to help reduce order processing costs.

“Order Optimizer has allowed REI to see immediate reductions in split shipments, reducing costs and improving customer delivery experiences,” said Matt Bergerson, Director of Omni Channel Experience and Operations, REI. “It also helped us manage capacity constraints as peak, reducing order expedites and providing faster service to our customers.”

IBM MetroPulse

IBM’s Industry Platforms Unit, working with IBM’s India Research Lab, brings new first-of-a-kind, AI-driven capabilities into the latest enhancements to MetroPulse.  The new capabilities are designed to allow consumer industry companies to better understand customers through:

• New larger data sets from a leading consumer products market data provider and also product sentiment data via product ratings and reviews provider, provides access to consumer preferences and characteristics at the neighborhood level.
• New retail-industry specific vocabulary into the platform to help the AI understands the difference between fashion items such as jackets and sweaters, and between boat necks and V-necks.
• New AI algorithms and models that can help identify and understand the signals buried in the data and exposes them in a meaningful and standardized way via APIs. These signals can then be further processed by solutions and additional solution-specific models to help business leaders and merchandisers to understand trends, behaviors, and preferences of their target consumers. The new models use explainable AI techniques to help users of the platform understand why an AI model generates a particular output for a given input.

Available now, the enhanced MetroPulse is a software-as-a-service cloud offering for line of business users in retail and consumer brand businesses.

IBM will demonstrate the capabilities of IBM Order Management and MetroPulse at NRF 2019 in booth #2119.