Colorado has done something quite innovative this year. It played a huge role in state and local government efficiency. An accomplishment made possible through an app development competition called Go Code Colorado. As a result, the competition has been recognized with a StateScoop 50 award for State Innovation of the Year. And Xentity had a hand in it. We provided IT consulting support to organizations partaking in this challenge, such as the Business Intelligence Center (BIC).
Xentity Was Glad To Be A Part Of It
Colorado’s Office of the Secretary of State invented and delivered Go Code Colorado, an application development competition for using public data to address challenges identified by the business community. Three teams built winning apps and business plans and will have their technology licensed by the state for a year. These teams have formed businesses. Some are in discussions with investors. And some have left their day jobs to focus on building their new venture.
The genius of Go Code Colorado is quite amazing. The state took funds from the filing fees that businesses pay to register their businesses and gave it back to the business community through Go Code Colorado. Also, they incubated three new promising businesses in the process. The state currently plans to build on the success of the first year and then run Go Code Colorado for a second year. This time, however, they plan to do so on a much larger scale. In doing so, they hope to improve on many aspects based on lessons learned from year one.
Xentity had the pleasure of participating in Go Code Colorado as the State’s data management provider. Here, we were responsible for sourcing, curating, improving and publishing 38 datasets from state agencies from higher ed to labor and employment. You can read more about Go Code and Xentity’s support in our April Blog Entry: Go Code Colorado Open Data Effort is going into its final weeks. Also, check out the photo gallery of the final event.