Extracurricular Manager by Schoolabs Wins Rep. Rose’s (NY-11) 2019 Congressional App Challenge

Rep. Max Rose has named two Staten Island students as the winner of the Congressional App Challenge in New York’s 11th district. Tottenville High School’s Kartik Kumar and Anthony Squillacioti submitted Extracurricular Manager,  is a service that allows students to communicate directly with other students, as well as with school faculty, clubs, and organizations in regards to upcoming events, fundraisers, and extracurricular activities.

When asked why they were passionate about creating a communication app the students replied, “We are fairly involved in our school’s organizational scene, and thus we experience various issues in the management of extracurricular activities. Our previous school year in particular became a hectic scramble for signatures from advisors confirming that we had obtained the number of service hours required to obtain certain service honors, and since then we’ve been formulating different ways to streamline the entire process.” 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.