Three teams from Grand Junction took home a total of $40,000 in prizes at this year's 2022 Go Code Colorado Awards sponsored by the Colorado Secretary of State’s Business Intelligence Center
In Denver on Friday, May 27, CMU's Maddie Vickers and Samuel Tufts were handed a $25,000 check by Go Code Colorado Program Manager Anni Proctor for taking first place in the analytics track of the competition.
The goal of the annual competition is to challenge teams to build a data analytics tool or data-driven business application from publicly available data that addresses a problem in the state in hopes of providing Colorado businesses meaningful insights for decision making.
Vickers, who graduated this spring after double majoring in business economics and business analytics, worked with CMU senior Tufts on the project and submitted it to Go Code with support from CMU Professor of Computer Information Systems Johnny Snyder, PhD, who also took home a prize for his own project.
That class and school project not only landed Vickers a substantial amount of money that she'll put towards graduate school, but provided her with a unique opportunity to showcase how she processes complex information and translates it into something tangible.
“This was an incredible experience to work with data analysts from across Colorado and create feasible solutions to some of the problems we are facing in the healthcare industry,” said Vickers. “It was thrilling to see so much hard work pay off.”
The Go Code Colorado competition has two tracks: analytics and applications. The analytics competitors created dashboards transforming data into actionable conclusions that businesses can use to make decisions. The two Mavericks who made up team HEALTH CARES completed an analysis on chronic illnesses after being inspired in class by guest lecturer Dr. Michael Pramenko.
The applications track focuses on translating the data into a business solution. Taking third place in that division was Trail Funds, created by another student team from CMU lead by Bryan Wachs.Trail Funds is an app which enables trail users to give back to the organizations who maintain Colorado’s diverse trails. Trail Funds plans to be a B-corp in the Maverick Innovation Center to create an entrepreneurial experience for students while on campus.
This is the ninth year that the Secretary of State’s office has hosted the Go Code Competition, which is open to residents all across the state. Each track had a first, second and third place. Out of the six winners for both tracks, three represented the CMU community and four were from western Colorado.