Announcing the 2018 Go Code Colorado winners

Three teams walk away with $15,000 each, priceless mentorship and experience.

DENVER, June 8, 2018 -- Go Code Colorado, an award-winning competition that challenges teams to turn public data into useful business insights and tools, announced the three winning teams that impressed judges during the final competition event Thursday.

Abodio, Business Incentives and Carbos emerged victorious with their tools that aim to simplify and streamline the process of planning and building an accessory dwelling unit, provide info on grants, loans, tax incentives, and other resources and funding to entrepreneurs, and leverage public data and blockchain technology to remove the barrier to entry into the carbon marketplace, respectively.

These multidisciplinary teams won amongst a competitive field of participants that started with nearly 40 teams made up of more than 260 participants.

"The Go Code Colorado teams continue to impress," said Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams. "This year's finalist teams showed an incredible breadth of ideas for how public data can help business decision makers. I can't wait to see how Abodio, Business Incentives and Carbos move their ideas forward."

Abodio, Business Incentives and Carbos, along with seven other teams from across the state, emerged from Challenge Weekend, April 13-15, with an award of $2,500 each and enjoyed the benefits of Mentor Weekend, April 27-29, as they took their insights and tools to the next level. At the Final Competition Event, the winning teams made presentations to an impressive panel of judges from Colorado's business, entrepreneur, start-up and tech communities.

The judges had the difficult task of choosing only three teams as winners of Go Code Colorado 2018 by applying criteria such as:

• How new and different is the idea is from what is currently available?
• How are the teams adding value to public data and delivering it to Colorado businesses to assist with data-driven decision making?
• How useful is the product?

The judges were also assisted by a separate technical evaluation of each product, which they factored in, along with the teams' presentations, in selecting the winners.

"Go Code Colorado embodies the innovative spirit of Colorado, said judge Erik Mitisek. "Colorado is a laboratory for democracy and Go Code is an example of the kind of experiment that has a great impact on the state in real time. By opening access to and encouraging use of public data to benefit the private sector, Go Code opens access to the entrepreneurs making real change in the state."

Judge Kathy Keating added, "Go Code Colorado inspires participants to solve problems about real needs. The missions, the social impacts these teams have is awesome. It's incredibly inspiring to see the way they take raw public data and turn it into something meaningful to the world."

The three teams that won and their products are:

Abodio (Colorado Springs)

Abodio aims to simplify and streamline the process of planning and building an Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) for homeowners and contractors by creating a database of building codes, zoning laws, ordinances and individual parcel data. This data is combined and analyzed to generate new insights about individual properties.

The team's motivation behind their product: "Finding solutions to create more affordable housing is a high priority for cities right now. ADUs are set to grow in popularity as a solution that not only provides needed affordable housing but also allows homeowners to generate some extra income."

Find Abodio online at: https://abodio.co/

Business Incentives (Grand Junction)

Business Incentives is a search tool for entrepreneurs that aggregates data from multiple entities and displays results for grants, loans, tax incentives, enterprise and opportunity zones as well as other types of resources and funding.

The team's motivation behind their product: "Seven out of 10 businesses fail each year. Lots of business owners have good intentions, but that does not pay the bills. Grants, tax incentives and loans are out there, but they're hard to find. That's a lot of money just waiting to be claimed, if only there was a way to find it. Business Incentives aims to do it better than their competition by aggregating multiple sources in one spot with a simple and easy-to-use interface."

Find Business Incentives online at: https://coloradoincentives.com/

Carbos (Fort Collins)

Carbos leverages public data and blockchain technology to remove the barrier to entry into the carbon marketplace. By bringing small carbon offset projects to market, Carbos allows environmentally conscious business owners to invest in local carbon sequestration resources rather than large international projects.

The team's motivation behind their product: "Climate change is an issue we can't escape, and Colorado has the potential to generate $30 billion from carbon trading just from the agricultural sector. Carbos wants to help establish an equitable system for carbon trading to help Colorado become a leader in global carbon offset projects."

Find Carbos online at: http://carbos.co/

About Go Code Colorado: Go Code Colorado is a statewide competition to use public data to build useful insights and tools for Colorado businesses. The competition is housed in Colorado Secretary of State Wayne W. Williams' office. Since 2014 hundreds of developers, designers, business and marketing professionals, analysts, entrepreneurs and other big thinkers have participated in the award-winning challenge – the first and only statewide effort of its kind.