IBM moved to increase the base of developers interested in using its OpenStack-based Bluemix PaaS this week, launching developerWorks Open. The platform includes informational resources such as blogs, videos, and the opportunity to communicate with specialists. The company also open sourced 50 new projects, most of which are related to either business or cloud programming.

“IBM firmly believes that open source is the foundation of innovative application development in the cloud,” said IBM vice president of Cloud Architecture and Technology Dr Angel Diaz. “With developerWorks Open, we are open sourcing additional IBM innovations that we feel have the potential to grow the community and ecosystem and eventually become established technologies.”

These projects include IBM Bluemix Mobile Services SDKs, Agentless System Crawler, for monitoring cloud data, and Clampify, for using OpenStack Neutron with a Docker Swarm cluster.

Currently, IBM participates in and contributes to more than 150 open source projects. These projects include Spark, OpenStack, Cloud Foundry, Open Contain Project, Node.js, CouchDb, Linux, Eclipse and an already established relationship with Apache. Open source projects increase the skills and knowledge base around IBM’s software product set. developerWorks Open is the next step in IBM’s strategy to help businesses create, use, and innovate around cloud computing systems.

IBM has a history of enlarging its audience (and the number of people who can use their product) through education. (DISCLOSURE: I actually started my tech writing career writing tutorials for developerWorks, and am still one of only four Level 2 IBM developerWorks Master Authors in the world.)

Also as part of this initiative, IBM is launching the Academic Initiative for Cloud, collaborating with 200 universities around the globe to train more students on technologies related to IBM Bluemix. The new program will create cloud development curricula using Bluemix, IBM’s platform-as-a-service, in over 200 universities, reaching more than 20,000 students in 36 countries. According to an IBM press release, faculty members will receive 12 months of access to the Bluemix trial for themselves as well as up to six months access for students in their program. Both faculty and student accounts are renewable and do not require a credit card. Additionally, IBM is launching a new Student Developer Community that helps students get started on their journey of cloud education, and provides quick access to learning resources and information on how students can join Bluemix U, where students can showcase their accomplishments and the impact of their real-world projects.

IBM is also working with Girls Who Code, hosting a class of female high-school students in New York City for a seven-week summer immersion program, and is announcing a new collaboration with GSVlabs on the ReBoot Accelerator for Women, a program designed to help women returning to work after a multi-year sabbatical.

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IBM is also sponsoring ultimately get real-world experiences that translate into innovation for the enterprise. As such, IBM has sponsored 25 of the AngelHack hackathons in the Eighth Global Hackathon Series.