SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - Jan 15, 2014) -   Appirio today announced the relaunch of topcoder, the world's largest professional development and design community and the leading platform for crowdsourced development. The new and improved topcoder.com site provides the community's 600,000+ members with a way to compete on interesting and challenging problems, and connects businesses with the world's top developers, designers and data scientists.

Recent improvements to the platform include a new user interface, a new social log-in feature that allows members to access the site using Facebook, Google or Twitter, and a new API on a replatformed cloud-based middle tier for a faster, more open experience. In 2014 members can expect an even greater investment in both the community and platform, including a new HTML5 Arena, streamlined development challenges, more capabilities to test and measure technical skills, and broader categories of data science problems. 

Since Appirio's acquisition of topcoder in September 2013, the volume of work and challenges on the platform has increased by 20 percent, providing more opportunities to learn, earn recognition and compete for monetary awards. Last year in the community, contributors and participants from more than 152 countries (a 150 percent increase from 2012) earned more than $8.5M in prizes.

"Today marks a major milestone for Appirio and topcoder, as we've officially merged CloudSpokes into a new and relaunched topcoder brand. We're proud that the unified community helped design and build the new site," said Narinder Singh, president of topcoder and chief strategy officer at Appirio. "We will continue to expand what members can do with topcoder and will build out more customer facing technology capabilities. We'll also be making investments in programs that help improve the state of design, development and data science.

With new and renewed topcoder customers such as Comcast, Ferguson, Harvard and NASA, members in 2014 will have the opportunity to compete and solve challenges like asteroid detection, next generation Bluetooth projects, mobilized sales productivity and much more.

As part of the increased investment in topcoder, Appirio also announced it would be moving the annual Topcoder Open (TCO) global development and design competition to San Francisco, California. The Topcoder Open gathers the top community members from around the world to compete in design, software development, algorithm challenges and more. Last year's sponsors and exhibitors included Facebook, Google, NASA, Yelp and other technology leaders.

This move to the epicenter of technology offers participants and sponsors even greater access to the hotbed of innovation, talent and companies in the Silicon Valley.

In a presentation written by Helen Huntley at the 2013 Gartner Outsourcing Summit, it was noted, "by 2016, application services providers will have replaced 20 percent of their internal application management staff with crowdsourcing and community sourcing." This growth and investment is a direct reflection of the rapid acceptance and adoption of crowdsourcing as a means for companies to increase innovation, and to create solutions that grow their businesses quickly and cost effectively.

About Topcoder
 The topcoder community gathers the world's experts in design, development and data science to work on interesting and challenging problems for fun and reward. The community helps members improve their skills, demonstrate and gain reward for their expertise, and provide the industry with objective insight on new and emerging technologies.

About Appirio
 Appirio is a global cloud consultancy that helps customers achieve results in weeks, not years by harnessing the power of the world's top talent. Appirio's 600,000 member topcoder community and crowdsourcing platform, combined with the company's business and technical expertise, have helped 700+ enterprises confidently use technology to increase innovation and transform business. Founded in 2006, Appirio is a trusted partner to companies such as Apria, Coca-Cola, eBay, Facebook, Japan Post Network, L'Oreal, NetApp, The Four Seasons and Virgin America.