Passable wins Rep. Brian Mast’s (FL-18) 2020 Congressional App Challenge

When asked what inspired the creation of Passable, the student said, “The idea for Passable came from my middle and high school teachers’ poor experiences with issuing hall passes. As I brainstormed for the project, I realized that keeping a digital record of hall passes allows for an intelligent use of this data. With this, contact tracing, assisting emergency responders, etc. are possible just from making this data readily available. From this spark, Passable was created with the goal of making students, faculty, and teachers safer and more secure at school.”

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.