New 2 U wins Rep. Christopher Smith’s 2022 Congressional App Challenge in New Jersey’s Fourth District
Rep. Christopher Smith has named Kristen Gallagher of Communications High School, Zaina Saif of Communications High School, and Nicholas Martino of Communications High School as the winners of the 2022 Congressional App Challenge in New Jersey’s Fourth District.
When asked what inspired the creation of New 2 U, the students said, ”We were inspired by friends and family members who are constantly looking to donate outgrown children’s clothes to someone who would actually use them. Many people in our community do not know where to donate to ensure their items are put to good use, so our goal is to connect parents.”
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.