He is an authority on competitive collaboration in transparent enterprise systems amongst global virtual communities. [1], As the community of designers, developers, data scientists, and competitive programmers involved in Topcoder grew, the company started to offer software development services to 3rd party clients, contracting individual community members to work on specific tasks. He is an authority on competitive collaboration in transparent enterprise systems amongst global virtual communities. Cash prizes ranging from $5,000 to $10,… [10][11][12][13][14], Since the end of 2017, Topcoder has continued to offer its enterprise clients the Hybrid Crowd platform, as a way to protect intellectual property in crowdsourcing projects. Copyright © Fort Point Capital. From July 2017 to February 2018 it ran the Functional Map of the World challenge to develop deep learning algorithms capable of scanning and identifying in satellite imagery different classes of objects, such as airports, schools, oil wells, shipyards, or ports . [1][2] The name was formerly spelt as "TopCoder" until 2013. [48], In 2013, it was reported that researchers from Harvard Medical School, Harvard Business School, and London Business School successfully used Topcoder Community to solve complex biological problems. Topcoder (formerly TopCoder) is a crowdsourcing company with an open global community of designers, developers, data scientists, and competitive programmers. These were the first type of challenges at Topcoder.[1][39]. [64] Also in 2013 Topcoder helped NASA to develop a software solution for tracking food consumption by astronauts. Topcoder representatives claim that at this point their community had about 170k registered members, and the company's annual revenue was approximately $19 million. [54], Since 2016 IBM has been collaborating with Topcoder to promote their cloud platform, IBM Cloud, and IBM Watson services, in particular. In addition to the main championship, from 2001 to 2007 Topcoder organized an annual TopCoder Collegiate Challenge tournament, for college students only. In both cases, more substantial prizes compared to regular design challenges with the similar goals, are offered in exchange for the shorter timeline. ", "Topcoder Launches Hybrid Crowd to Deliver New Levels of On-Demand Talent to the Enterprise", "Marathon Match 100 with Prizes & T-Shirts", "Topcoder, ConsenSys partner to create blockchain engineers community", "ConsenSys, Topcoder Partner to Create Ethereum Engineering Community", "Topcoder and IBM Partner to Bring Watson to the Topcoder Community", "Topcoder Launches Crowdsourcing Community to Help U.S. Military Veterans Transition to Technology Jobs", "Topcoder provides employment opportunities for US Military veterans", "Eli Lilly aims to tap "rock star" programmers", "Solving big-data bottleneck: Scientists team with business innovators to tackle research hurdles", "Prize-based contests can provide solutions to computational biology problems", "Differentiating a port from a shipyard is a new kind of problem for AI", "IARPA, Lockheed researchers prepare to retrain algorithms for government use", "IBM Watson, Topcoder bring AI capabilities to more than 1 million developers", "IBM's Watson & Cloud Now Available to Topcoder Community", "IBM Launches Experimental Platform to Embed Watson in Any Device", "Build Better Government on Blockchain - TopCoder Challenge", "IBM Brings Low-Code App Development to Bluemix", "TopCoder Community Refines Medical Kits For Future NASA Space Missions", "NASA and TopCoder to issue Robonaut 2 "sight" challenge", "NASA + Topcoder Team-Up on an Advanced Robotics Algorithm Challenge", "NASA, TopCoder Announce $30,000 Contest to Maximize Power Output to ISS", "Optimizing the ISS solar arrays, a Python solution to the NASA Longeron Challenge", "NASA Asks The "Crowd" To Help Track What Astronauts Eat", "TopCoder Teams with NASA and National Geographic Emerging Explorer Albert Lin to Create a Powerful Algorithm that Identifies Human-Built Structures in Genghis Khan's Homeland", "Calit2 Research Scientist Albert Lin Teams with TopCoder, NASA", "NASA Offers Cash Prizes for Help Hunting Dangerous Asteroids", "Nasa Asteroid Data Hunter contest hopes humans will outsmart dinosaurs", "NASA taps massive coding community for deep space solutions", "NASA Is Contest-Sourcing Solutions to Its Deepest Problems", "Name NASA New Free-Flying Robot and Win $1,000! The name was formerly spelt as "TopCoder" until 2013. Its certified communities include members of public Topcoder communities who are vetted for a customer's specific requirements, such as signing an additional NDA, completing a background check, or meeting any other particular certifications. [55][56][57] Within this partnership, Topcoder has created a dedicated Cognitive sub-community and run numerous educational and customer-oriented challenges. [1][6], In 2013, Topcoder was acquired by Appirio, and the Topcoder community (of around 500 thousand at the time), was merged, under the Topcoder brand, with the 75k member crowdsourcing community Cloudspokes, created and managed by Appirio. TopCoder’s innovative management processes and culture have been the subject of studies and research by Harvard Business School, MIT and London Business School among others. [24] Also, since the end of 2017, Topcoder, as a part of their Hybrid Crowd offering, creates sub-communities dedicated to specific clients/projects. Also, participation in challenges organized in the interests of commercial clients generally requires the community member to sign a non-disclosure agreement. The sub-communities may require members to meet additional eligibility criteria before joining. [1][2][3] Topcoder also organizes the annual Topcoder Open tournament and a series of smaller regional events. [58][59], In 2010, NASA asked the Topcoder community to optimize the contents of medical kits for future human space exploration missions. [49] Researchers say that Topcoder competitors approached the biology-related big-data challenge, and managed to create a more accurate and 1000 times faster alternative of BLAST algorithm. TopCoder's mission is to create objective ratings that place high value on the programming industry's best and brightest, and build opportunity and community for programmers through ongoing programming tournaments and employer connections. View Jack Hughes’ profile on LinkedIn, the world's largest professional community. In 2000, CMGI, Inc. acquired a majority ownership of the company. [1][4] From 2006 onwards, Topcoder held design competitions, thus offering design services to their clients. He has been a board member of the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation since 2001 and is currently serving as Chairman of the Board of Directors. [52][53] In the ongoing Mercury challenge it aims to create AI methods for automated prediction of critical events, involving military action, non-violent civil unrest, and infectious diseases in Middle East. Intellectual property for the winning submissions to commercial challenges is passed to the client, in exchange for monetary prizes paid to the winners. [50][51], Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity organization collaborates with Topcoder to create innovative algorithms for intelligence applications. [47], The first Marathon Match at Topcoder took place from May 10 to May 17, 2006: https://community.topcoder.com/tc?module=MatchDetails&rd=10015. Cash prizes ranging from $5,000 to $10,000 per match were secured from corporate sponsors and awarded to tournament winners to generate interest from the student community. Topcoder was founded in 2001 by Jack Hughes, Chairman and Founder of the Tallan company. [1] In 2006 Topcoder also started to organize Marathon Matches (MM) – one week long algorithmic contests. [66][67], In 2014, Asteroid Data Hunter, Asteroid Tracker, and many other challenges were carried on to develop better algorithms for asteroids detection in space images. As the first user of Hybrid Crowd, Wipro integrated its internal (employee-only) crowdsourcing platform TopGear with Topcoder. See TopCoder § Notable Clients and Projects section for further information on these sub-communities. [5][note 1], In an attempt to optimize expenses, Topcoder introduced new competition tracks in 2007-2008 and delegated more work from its employees to the community. Founded in 2001, TopCoder’s mission has been to create mechanisms for learning, skills mastery and opportunity through online social and professional community. [26][27][28][29] In 2018 the CAB was replaced by the Topcoder MVP (Most Valuable Player) program. In 2017, Topcoder entered into a partnership with ConsenSys, an incubator of Ethereum projects, to promote the Topcoder Blockchain Community, and provide ConsenSys with design and development support for their blockchain projects. By 2009, the size of Topcoder's staff had been reduced to 16 project managers servicing 35 clients, while the community did most of the actual work via crowdsourcing. Jack Hughes is founder and chairman of TopCoder, Inc., and is a pioneer and expert in the field of open innovation and its application to the discipline of software development. He is an authority on competitive collaboration in transparent enterprise systems amongst global virtual communities. The contestants were students from different secondary schools or universities. [76], In 2017, NASA, HeroX, and Topcoder announced a challenge to optimize their computational-intensive software solution for fluid dynamics, FUN3D,[77][78][79][80] which was cancelled later due to a high number of applicants (more than 1,800) during the registration, coupled with concerns about control over the public distribution of the software to optimize. Short timelines allow Topcoder managers to demonstrate to customers how crowdsourcing works on real cases, during live, and few-days meetings with the clients. The following table includes the list of Topcoder sub-communities dedicated to specific technologies and/or clients (within their Hybrid Crowd offering). [82][83], At the end of 2017 Topcoder, together with Operation Code non-profit charity, announced the launch of Topcoder Veterans Community, that will focus on helping US military veterans to make their way into tech careers in software development via education programs and paid crowdsourcing challenges. It is open and global: anybody, with a few legal restrictions dictated by US laws, and listed in Community Terms, can join and compete, without any financial commitment to Topcoder. Topcoder pays community members for their work on the projects and sells community services to corporate, mid-size, and small-business clients. Jack founded TopCoder on the premise that talent and skill are the determinant factors in the quality and utility of software — and software has become central to the global economy. Jack Hughes is founder and chairman of TopCoder, Inc., and is a pioneer and expert in the field of open innovation and its application to the discipline of software development. [65], In another challenge, Topcoder community helped NASA and National Geographic's explorer Albert Lin to develop an algorithm to identify human-built structures in Genghis Khan's homeland. Since 2015, Topcoder Regional events have been held through the year in different countries. This page was last edited on 16 June 2020, at 06:47. [60], In 2013, NASA Tournament Lab cooperated with Topcoder to run data-science challenges targeting to improve computer vision algorithms for their Robonaut 2 humanoid robot;[61][62][63] in another challenge, Topcoder members were asked to develop algorithms for optimization of ISS solar arrays usage. Under Jack’s tenure as Chairman at Tallan, the company was recognized as one of the fastest-growing technology companies in North America four years in a row by consultancy firm Deloitte & Touche and by Inc. magazine for its outstanding performance. TopCoder was one of the first business models to embrace a global, virtual workforce and Jack Hughes brings a unique perspective on the potential of these trends as we transition toward a radically different workplace of the future."