P. A.T ( Parkinson’s Assistive Technology) wins Rep. Brett Guthrie’s 2022 Congressional App Challenge in Kentucky’s Second District

Rep. Brett Guthrie has named Megan Shirley of Barren County High School and Clay Madison of Barren county high school as the winners of the 2022 Congressional App Challenge in Kentucky’s Second District.

When asked what inspired the creation of P. A.T ( Parkinson’s Assistive Technology), the students said, ”I was inspired to create this app after watching my grandfather struggle with the symptoms and challenges that come with Parkinson’s over the last three years. Seeing the man I used to think of as untouchable begin to struggle with everyday activities really made an impact on me. I always knew I wanted to help people, but now I know that I want to help others with Parkinson’s. P.A.T is exactly my chance to do that. Created with the intent to ease the symptoms of Parkinson’s and improve quality of life for those with advanced stage Parkinson’s, this app will be able to help those like my grandfather.”

The Congressional App Challenge smashed previous participation records in 2022. All told, 9,011 students registered for this year’s competition – creating 2,707 fully-functioning apps for 335 Members of Congress across 50 states, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Mariana Islands, American Samoa, and the District of Columbia. This year’s competition set the record for most student registrations, most apps submitted, most apps per district submitted, and most districts receiving over 20 apps. The wildly successful competition continues to impress upon House Members the importance of computer science education and the need to develop a pipeline of diverse, domestic STEM talent.


The Congressional App Challenge is an official 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. Each participating Member of Congress selects a winning app from their district, and each winning team is invited to showcase their winning app to Congress during our annual #HouseOfCode festival. The program is a public-private partnership made possible through funding from Omidyar Network, AWS, Rise, theCoderSchool, Apple, and others.

The 2023 Congressional App Challenge will launch in June of 2023, and eligible students can pre-register for the competition now.