FairLegal Wins Rep. Rouda’s (CA-48) 2019 Congressional App Challenge

Rep. Harley Rouda has named two Irvine students as the winner of the Congressional App Challenge in California\’s 48th district. Sage Hill School’s Timothy Guo and Jiajun Ni submitted FairLegal, an app sharing legal information and connecting underprivileged defendants with lawyers.

When asked why they were passionate about creating an app that made lawyers more easily accessible the students replied, “Our intention in creating FairLegal is to make the legal system more equitable and just for thousands of underprivileged defendants. I think it’s incredibly inequitable to be denied adequate legal representation because of socioeconomic status. With this, I wanted to create an app that helps people in these situations.” They hope 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.