Go Code Colorado Statewide Apps and Business Challenge Final Event Winners Announced

Go Code Colorado celebrates technology and awards three Colorado teams with a $25,000 contract with the Secretary of State’s office.

Denver, May 22, 2015 – Three teams from Denver and Ft. Collins were awarded Go Code Colorado’s final prize last night: a year-long, $25,000 contract with the Secretary of State’s office. The three teams emerged as having the best app and business ideas from nine finalist teams that won first-round challenge weekend competitions in Colorado Springs, Denver, Durango, Fort Collins, and Grand Junction. They attended a Mentor Weekend in Boulder to hone their apps and business ideas, then presented their final ideas last night to a sold-out audience of 300 and a panel of five judges comprised of leaders from Colorado’s tech entrepreneurship community.

"When our office launched Go Code Colorado last year, we had a vision for the value that data could add to Colorado’s business community," said Wayne Williams, Colorado Secretary of State. "The final event just proves that putting a resource like public data in the hands of smart and savvy entrepreneurs and developers can create great solutions for Colorado businesses."

"The apps were stronger this year," said judge Erik Mitisek, CEO of the Colorado Technology Association who also judged the competition in its inaugural year. "Go Code Colorado continues to find innovators across the state who are doing amazing things with public data."

The winning teams are MentorMatter, from Denver, and Flow and Pikr Knows, bothfrom Ft. Collins. A description of each of the finalists follows:

Unite
Unite Colorado saves small businesses time and money by simplifying the process of hiring quality Colorado-based interns. Our mission is to help small businesses find qualified interns by streamlining the legal, human resource and school accreditation process. We give small businesses all the tools and resources they need to quickly find and hire quality students while in-turn giving entrepreneurial students the opportunity to connect with startups, entrepreneurs and small business in Colorado.

Quizata
Tourism data is currently limited or unavailable, Quizata uses the simplicity of an either/or swipe interface, with the popularity of identity-driven quizzes to create valuable data about who wants to visit, and what they want when they visit.

Exit Now
Exit Now helps reduce traffic during peak times as well as weather or incident-induced slow periods by utilizing real time CDOT and other data as well as predictive analysis. They achieve this by enabling businesses to provide coupons or discounts to motorists giving them financial incentives—based on triggers such as location, weather and traffic—to delay their travel itinerary until an ideally less congested time in the near future.

MentorMatter
There is a disconnect between the skills that graduates have and what business needs. MentorMatter connects college and university students with volunteer industry mentors to improve recruiting and increase new hire retention through mentorship.

COmmute
COmmute is a Colorado-specific trip assistant app that uses historic traffic information from around the state to generate projected traffic congestion patterns and trends year-round. Instead of promoting incentives and alternative options for traveling to popular ski and tourism centers, COmmute deals with alleviating congestion and traffic problems to allow for a steadier and more predictable stream of travelers.

Pikr Knows
Pikr is a Colorado tourism app for residents and visitors that suggests activities based on user preferences. Users willingly offer personally identifiable information in exchange for suggestions of interesting things to do. This visibility informs businesses as to how they might adjust their business models, offerings and marketing/sales efforts to maximize profitable and sustainable revenue.

Flow
Flow is an incentive-based mobile app designed to encourage and validate responsible commuting behavior. It will reduce traffic congestion by analyzing, predicting, and promoting responsible and environmentally friendly ways to change commuting patterns.

COnext
COnext provides a solution for businesses to reach out to universities and colleges to identify qualified millennials to replace retiring baby boomers. COnext brings an online platform to businesses, students, and faculty to ease this problem from each perspective. COnext allows a student to showcase a skill set in a meaningful way, faculty to endorse and recommend students, and businesses to find skill sets to meet their needs.

GoGo Colorado
GoGo Colorado is a simple location-based app that merges CDOT and crowd sourced data streams to provide actionable traffic guidance. It provides location-aware notifications as well as curated business lists for each exit. Working with a strategic partner, GoGo Colorado offers an integrated digital coupon platform to deliver and analyze coupons.

Go Code Colorado - Data is the infrastructure of the digital age. And publicly available data can now illuminate solutions to challenges like no other time in our history. There is no single entity that collects and manages more data than government. Go Code Colorado brings together a community of entrepreneurs, business partners, and developers to make use of public data.