By Juha Mikkola
Wyncode’s Pitch Day #2 was a day full of excitement as fourteen Wyncoders making up the Academy’s second cohort presented and demonstrated their full stack web applications to a huge crowd at the LAB Miami in Wynwood.
Just nine weeks earlier, many in this group had never written a line of code. In an intense, challenging and exciting sprint to the finish, the Wyncoders learned the fundamentals of coding through Ruby, an English-like language that’s relatively easy to learn but extremely powerful. As they progressed into the Ruby on Rails framework, students began building actual web applications, culminating in pitching the Wyncode staff on their ideas for a final project. Once their final project was determined, the Wyncoders got to work, many in groups but a few opting to take on the challenge individually. From the initial steps of creating the application structure, to final tweaks to the user interface and dozens of practice runs through their pitches, the students were ready.
As the start of the event got closer, the LAB Miami filled past capacity with nearly 200 tech leaders, hiring partners, family, friends and supporters. The Wyncode panel was made up of four influential hiring partners -- Charles Irizarry of Rokk3rLabs, Jonatan Alava from EarlyShares, Ricardo Morales of CareCloud and Bryan Dennstedt of MDLive -- who have all hired from Wyncode’s program. For the students, presenting in front of such a big crowd was a rush, especially as Wyncode announced a $1,000 cash prize to the winning application.
In order of presentation:
- * ForgetMeNot by Alfonso Pintos, Joel Lusky and Bayardo Navarro
- * Nest Quest by Ezequiel Politzer
- * Prescription Reminder by Samuel Zobel and Craig Sniffen
- * Künstant by Jose Rubio, Jonathan Lyons and Widny St.Louis
- * BuskerBoost by Hassan Mian
- * Zen Funding by Joshua Powell
- * Vocabsocial by Andy Weiss and Jesus Brazon
After the pitches, it was time for the panel to deliberate. In the meantime, PK Banks of Meme.menu, a startup he created after Wyncode’s first cohort, announced that his first hire is Jesus Brazon of Wyncode’s second cohort. The Florida Panthers Hockey Club also showed their support for MiamiTech, providing the panelists with tickets for an upcoming game.
The winner: Künstant, a beautiful and functional app for artists to share their work and the creative process behind it.
After Pitch Day, the team at WyncodeAcademy has wasted no time, with the third cohort starting this Monday October 20th. Wyncode has received nearly 200 applications and the third cohort is Wyncode’s first sold out class. Applications are now being accepted for January’s Web Immersive Program at www.wyncode.co
Juha Mikkola is co-founder of Wyncode.