MathWizard Wins Rep. McCaul’s (TX-10) 2019 Congressional App Challenge
Rep. Michael McCaul has named an Austin student as the winner of the Congressional App Challenge in Texas’s 10th district. Westwood High School’s Ishan Dasgupta submitted MathWizard, an app to help students pursuing a career in STEM, as well as persons suffering from dementia.
When asked why they were passionate about creating an educational app the student replied, “The inspiration behind MathWizard was the information that such an app could help elderly people with dementia (which for me is in my family). Additionally, many of my friends struggle with math so I wanted to help them.” 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.