College Fetcher Wins Rep. Fitzpatrick’s (PA-01) 2019 Congressional App Challenge
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick has named a Harleysville student as the winner of the Congressional App Challenge in Pennsylvania’s 1st district. Souderton Area High School’s Rohan Mehta submitted College Fetcher, an app that aids students in their college search.
When asked why they were passionate about creating a college preparation app the student replied, “I was inspired to create this app due to my personal experience looking for colleges. I went through dozens of US News college rankings lists , and compared what colleges were best for computer science (CS) and pre-med, CS and economics, or CS and pre-law. After working for two hours, I soon realized how valuable it would be for me and others to have this search process automatized.” 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.