FastTrack Wins Rep. Rooney’s (FL-19) 2019 Congressional App Challenge
Rep. Francis Rooney has named a Fort Myers student as the winner of the Congressional App Challenge in Florida’s 19th district. Fort Myers High School’s Jonathan Wukitsch submitted FastTrack, an app designed to provide students with a simple and super fast way to check their grades, manage their schedules, set reminders, and more.
When asked why they were passionate about creating an app that focuses on aiding students with their daily schedules the student replied, “Considering how often students use their phones, it only makes sense to integrate features like a planner so that everyone has one centralized location to put all of their homework and other assignments. I truly believe that students will be more successful this way, because they can access all of this information with one tap. ” The student hopes to encourage other students to better their communities by using their computer science skills.
Over 10,000 students registered for the 2019 Congressional App Challenge. These students created and submitted 2,177 functioning apps, marking the end of the most successful Congressional App Challenge to date. All told, 304 Members of Congress hosted Congressional App Challenges in their districts across 48 states, Puerto Rico, the Mariana Islands, and Washington, D.C.
The CAC is an initiative of the U.S. House of Representatives, where Members of Congress host contests in their districts for middle school and high school students, encouraging them to learn to code and inspiring them to pursue careers in computer science. The non-profit Internet Education Foundation provides the CAC with supplemental staffing and support. In the five years of the Congressional App Challenge, the program has yielded 1134 App Challenges across 48 states. Thousands of functional apps have been created by over 25,000 students, and participant demographics surpass all industry diversity metrics.