Secretary of State Wayne Williams launches platform, soliciting ideas for how public data can create business insights

DENVER, Jan. 18, 2017 -- Secretary of State Wayne Williams announced today the launch of a platform to gather ideas for how public data can deliver business insights.

"We believe public data is an asset and that it ought to be more easily accessible and usable for the people of Colorado, especially business decision-makers," said Secretary Williams.

But we need your help. We're looking for your ideas on how public data can create business insights. That includes everyone from the owner of a small business to a manager or CEO of a large corporation. How can public data help you?"

The platform, which can be found online at https://ideabuzz.com/a/buzz/gocodecolorado/gocodecolorado, is a tool for brainstorming. Submitters can pose a question or offer a problem they face in their business. Others can vote in support of or comment to further develop or enhance a submission.

Example:

Submitter 1: "We're looking to open a new office and want to be located close to our prospective employees. What kind of public data is available to provide insights about various communities to choose from and who is living there?"

Submitter 2: "I have this same challenge as an employer. In addition to the demographics of a community, I'd like to know about employment rates so I understand how easy, or difficult, it will be to find employees. And if I knew something about the education or background of those potential employees, that would be fantastic!"

The Secretary of State's office has run the Business Intelligence Center program since 2013. The program seeks to promote a healthy business environment statewide by making business-relevant data accessible and partnering with the private sector to drive innovation through the use of public data to solve business challenges.

The program pursues this mission in two key ways. First, it assists state agencies in publishing public data to the state's open data platform, the Colorado Information Marketplace (data.colorado.gov). Second, it runs the Go Code Colorado app challenge, where teams of software developers and entrepreneurs use public data to address business problems. The fourth Go Code Colorado challenge kicks off this year on Feb. 1. More information about Go Code Colorado is online at gocode.colorado.gov.