59 Days of Code, Fresno’s geek fest, comes back for a new round of tech competition

The sixth 59 Days of Code competition wrapped up Saturday, three years after the last contest.

The contest, which pits teams creating technology discoveries, was last held in 2014.

“Its original mission was to kind of kick-start the tech revolution in Fresno and then the Central Valley, and after five years of running, the feeling is that it had done that,” said Derek Payton, 59 Days board of director and planning committee member. “The tech community was there. We no longer needed to lay that groundwork so we went on a hiatus for a little while.”

He said the 59 Days board “realized there was so much more work to get done, so we really wanted to bring it back.”

The Grand Showcase event was held Saturday at the Pacific Southwest Building, where 33 teams totaling 101 competitors pitched and showcased their web or mobile app project.

Besides the “classic” competition in which ideas are developed into proposals for new technology, 59 Days this year also offered a new “ignite” competition in which teams focused on a theme and offered technological solutions. The theme was water, and organizers talked to stakeholders including farmers, water districts, federal officials, environmentalists, cities, water advocates, tech companies and businesses to put together a long list of everybody’s problems.

“The purpose of the ignite track is to save the world,” Payton said. “Every year we’re going to have a different theme, and since California is coming out of the worst drought in 1,200 years, our theme this year is water.”

Each track was divided into two categories – Zero-Code and In-Progress. Zero-Code is where competitors start their projects from scratch, and In-Progress is where competitors work on existing projects.

The competitors developed their projects between June 18 and Aug. 16, and then had 10 days to prepare for their pitches, said Julie Mavrogeorge, 59 Days program coordinator and event planning specialist.

“You will think and code furiously for 59 days. And then we will judge you. We know that geeks can change the world and that #thecompetition ignite will drive that change,” organizers said on the 59 Days of Code website.

The projects were judged on coding, the groups’ marketing strategy and the design of the project.

This story was originally published August 26, 2017 at 7:56 PM with the headline "59 Days of Code, Fresno’s geek fest, comes back for a new round of tech competition."