Day four of the 2016 Tech Tour brought us to northern Colorado. Fort Collins has a rich history with Go Code Colorado, placing winning teams in each of the program’s first three years. So much so, that we put together a video about ‘what’s in the water’ in Fort Collins that has created such strong competition from year to year. It represents well the themes we saw from our Tech Tour visits today:
We started the day with a visit to Galvanize campus. Galvanize was a great host for our 2016 Go Code Challenge Weekend in Fort Collins, so it was nice to stop back for a visit.
Charisse Bowen, the campus director, gave the team a tour of the space and an update on various members and alumni. A fun fact from her introduction: the building was built in 1903 and served as the town grocery until the 1950s. The campus hosts a plethora of community events, offers a range of workspace options, and houses a gschool that offers a full stack six month immersive web development program.
From there, we headed to Innosphere, a science and technology startup incubator. Innosphere hosted a tech roundup panel with four local startups, spanning from pharmaceuticals, to food service, software development, and software analytics. The panel was insightful, telling startup stories and imparting wisdom on raising money, finding co-founders, hiring talent, and other crucial tasks. A theme that ran across the panelists’ comments was how much of the community infrastructure to build up tech startups has come together over the last couple of years. Their message: it is a good time to found and grow a tech company in Fort Collins.
The Tech Tour bus headed to Colorado State University next, but Go Code headed for Denver. To finish out the tour, follow the Colorado Technology Association online at @ColoTechAsn and coloradotechtour.org/stories.
It’s been a great week, traveling the state, visiting friends of the program and meeting new contacts. Everywhere we went, there were stories about innovation and technology driving economies, building communities, and contributing to quality of life. These are the same themes we’ve seen across the state from the beginning with Go Code Colorado: innovation through technology, collaboration, and a thriving entrepreneurial spirit make Colorado a great place to live and work.
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