KeepMeSafe wins Rep. Zoe Lofgren (CA-19) 2020 Congressional App Challenge

When asked what inspired the creation of KeepMeSafe, the student said, “One day in January after I came home from school, my mom showed me a news article that talked about how this fourteen-year old girl from my city had been abducted. The girl texted her friends on Snapchat, who found her location on the Snapchat map, and called the police. I thought to myself that maybe if this whole process was shortened, she could have been saved before this occurred. What would have been most helpful in the situation would be an app that was able to scare off the attacker and send the location to the police in a short amount of time. I started brainstorming, and from there, KeepMeSafe was born.”

Over 6,500 students registered for the 2020 Congressional App Challenge. These students created and submitted 3,088 functioning apps, marking the end of an extremely successful Congressional App Challenge amid the COVID-19 pandemic. All told, 308 Members of Congress hosted Congressional App Challenges in their districts across 49 states, Puerto Rico, the Mariana Islands, and Washington, DC.

The CAC is an initiative of the U.S. House of Representatives, where Members of Congress host competitions 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 Internet Education Foundation provides the CAC with supplemental support. In the six years of the Congressional App Challenge, thousands of functional apps have been created by over 30,000 students, and participant demographics surpass all industry diversity metrics.