Photos by David Salazar from Dark Matter Collective.

The LAB Miami in the Wynwood Arts District buzzed with energy as the Miami Tech community came together for Wyncode’s Pitch Day VII on Thursday night.

From humble beginnings, Wyncode Pitch Day has grown to a quarterly gathering of the who’s who of Miami tech, with attendance growing from just under 100 people to well over 200 now. Pitch Day is where Wyncoders present  full stack Web applications, or apps, that they built from the ground up in their final two weeks of training.

The night started with a networking hour, where Wyncode’s hiring partners met the current crop of Wyncoders before their pitches. Wyncode also hosted a special meet and greet for applicants interested in attending Wyncode and meeting face to face with Miami tech influencers.

Pitch Day VII was extra special as it marked the graduation for the first two Future Leaders of Tech Scholarship award winners, Henry Arbolaez and Arielle Dickey-Louis. Thanks to support from Knight Foundation, the Future Leaders of Tech Scholarship provides two deserving students per cohort an opportunity to attend Wyncode at no cost. Knight Foundation Miami Program Director Matt Haggman, along with Henry and Arielle, announced the next two Future Leaders of Tech Scholarship award winners, Jermaine Lang and Aldrin Bustos.

The two were selected earlier in the week after in-person interviews by a panel made up of Widny St. Louis (Wyncode grad and developer, TouchSuite), Kiesha Moodie (Teach for America, which is also supported by Knight Foundation) and Derick Pearson (co-founder of Code Fever Miami, another Knight grantee).

The winners of Pitch Day VII are LOGOIT, consisting of Wilfredo Lopez, Alberto Galvez and others.

The winning group received championship jerseys from the previous Pitch Day winners, a tradition started by Cohort IV. The group also walked away with a $1,000 cash prize.

The other groups included:

● Script Rocket: Madelene Campos, Mikel Aizpurua, David Turk

● Template Traders: Giancarlo Franchini, West Kraemer, Adrian Knapp

● Doc LOC:Josh Breault, Joseph Ciancio, John Hoeckele

● Golio: Arielle Dickey, Katherine Beam, Daniel Fusaro

● TipTroll: Guelmis Cortina, Daniel Brito, Pablo Kaparis

● First Impression: Henry Arbolaez, Timothy Reen, Stefanie Knapp

● TEAMMAKE: Jose Cartagena, Matt Rothstein, Daniel Munoz

● Amazing Grace: Matthew Roche, Bianca Padilla, Carolina Hernandez

● YouMe3D: Christian Samuel, Miguel Salazar, Paola Baccaro

The star-studded lineup of panelists made for an especially exciting event, challenging and supporting the Wyncoders. The panelists included Matt Haggman; Josh Siegel, the chief technology officer at CareCloud, a leading provider of cloud-based practice management; Marian Phelan, the CEO of Hashrocket, one of the country’s elite Ruby on Rails development companies; and Melissa Krinzman, managing director of Venture Architects who has over 20 years of experience in advising private companies and nonprofit organizations.

A special thanks to Knight Foundation who was the official presenting partner of the event. Other sponsors who helped make the night special were Jefe’s Tacos and Serendipity Yogurt Cafe.

Are you thinking about learning to code? Wyncode is currently accepting applications for its January cohort. Learn more and apply at www.wyncode.co