HealthiWealthi Wins Rep. Vela’s (TX-34) 2019 Congressional App Challenge
Rep. Filemon Vela has named a Rancho Viejo student as the winner of the Congressional App Challenge in Texas’s 34th district. South Texas ISD Health Professions’s Asmaa Khalil submitted HealthiWealthi, an app designed to educate people on how to manage their money and eat healthily at the same time.
When asked why they were passionate about creating a food advice app student replied,“Many people do not eat healthily, because they believe they cannot afford healthy and organic food. I often heard from high school and college students that they gave up eating nutritiously because of the financial issues they faced. ” 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.