Have you ever hired someone who looked great on paper but once in the job, not so much?

There’s an app for that.

One of the award winners in this year’s Go Code Colorado challenge was Hively, a Colorado Springs team that created a platform for companies to connect with potential employees based on personality match.

“We plan to revolutionize the way companies hire,” said Dalton Patterson of Hively. “Hively finds talent you need with personality that fits.”

Go Code Colorado is a statewide business app challenge housed in Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams’ office.

The award-winning challenge – the first and only statewide effort of its kind – brings together a community of entrepreneurs, business partners and software developers to use public data to solve business problems.

“This year’s challenge was the best yet,” said Andrew Cole, the program manager for Go Code Colorado. “The ideas and presentations were powerful examples of the value of public data when put in the hands of creative technologists.”

The host of Thursday’s night finale, Jared Ewy, pointed out that the secretary’s initials, WWW, are perfect for a tech event. Williams’ middle name is Warren, although Ewy thought it should be “WuzUp?”

In addition to Williams, Natalie Harris, the senior policy adviser for data-driven government at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, addressed the crowd.

Family, friends, data geeks and entrepreneurs gathered at the Seawell Ballroom at the Denver Performing Arts Center to see the 10 finalist teams present their app ideas.

The three winning teams each receive $25,000. The other winners were Foodcaster, a Denver team, and Regulation Explorer from Fort Collins.

Foodcaster helps food trucks find the best location to park by informing food truck owners of parking regulations, the amount of foot traffic the area gets, events going on in the area and other beneficial tips through data mined from social platforms and government datasets. Regulation Explorer created a platform that helps energy companies determine the best location sites to drill for oil and gas based on government regulations such as proximity to schools.

Initially, 35 teams presented their ideas on how to use public data to help business build competitive strategies at weekend competitions in Colorado Springs, Denver, Durango, Fort Collins and Grand Junction. Williams attended all but the Fort Collins event that kick-off weekend.

The five finale judges were Dianna Anderson, vice president, Global Data Strategy at IQNavigator; Deborah Blyth, chief information security officer for the state of Colorado; Andre Durand, founder, chairman and CEO at Ping Identity Corporation; Nicole Gravagna, PhD, adviser, author and health tech leader; and Sue Heilbronner, CEO at MergeLane.

To read more posts by Lynn Bartels, visit her official blog at the Colorado Secretary of State website.