SideWalk Nav Wins Rep. Quigley’s (IL-05) 2019 Congressional App Challenge

Rep. Mike Quigley has named a Chicago student as the winner of the Congressional App Challenge in Illinois’s 5th district. Lane Tech High School’s Dhruv Bala submitted SideWalk Nav, an app delivery system for local stores to better service their customers.

When asked why they were passionate about creating a delivery app the student replied, “Too many neighborhood stores are going out of business. They cannot compete with E-commerce giants on the delivery of goods. I want them to thrive by having the same access to technology that the tech giants have.” 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.