Gaming app wins 2018 Congressional App Challenge in Texas’ 28th Congressional District represented by Henry Cuellar
WASHINGTON, DC – This year, over 220 Members of the U.S. House of Representatives held a Congressional App Challenge. The Congressional App Challenge aims to engage students in computer science. The Congressional App Challenge spans 47 states and territories.
During the last four months, over five thousand students coded original apps as part of the district-wide competitions hosted by their Members of Congress.
The office of Representative Henry Cuellar is happy to announce Texas’s 28th Congressional District winner to be the Ode to the Stars app created by Andres Gutierrez and Antonio Portos. These students attend Dr Leo G. Cigarroa High School in Laredo, Texas. Andres and Antonio created this app to entertain people.
Over 5,200 students participated in the regional competitions. They submitted over 1,700 original student-created apps, a 96% growth in number of apps from last year’s App Challenge. The rest of the winners will be listed online at CongressionalAppChallenge.us over the next month. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to view the announcements of winners from each Member of Congress.
The Congressional App Challenge will invite winners from across the country to showcase their apps to the Members of Congress and members of the tech community at #HouseOfCode, a reception in Washington, DC in Spring 2019. Their work is eligible to be featured for one year on the permanent display in the U.S. Capitol Building and on the House.gov website. Each winning student will also be awarded $250 in AWS credits, generously donated by Amazon Web Services’ AWS Educate program.
Congratulations to all the students who participated!
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About the Congressional App Challenge
The Congressional App Challenge’s mission is to inspire, include, and innovate efforts around STEM and computer science education. The CAC is an initiative of the U.S. House of Representatives, where Members of Congress host contests in their districts for students, encouraging them to learn to code and inspiring them to pursue careers in computer science.The House of Representatives created the Congressional App Challenge (CAC) through the passage of H. Res 77 in 2013. The non-profit Internet Education Foundation provides the CAC with supplemental staffing and support. In the first four years of the Congressional App Challenge, the program has yielded 830 App Challenges across 45 states and territories. Since 2015, more than 4,000 functional apps have been created by over 14,000 students, and participant demographics surpass all industry diversity metrics.
The 2018 Congressional App Challenge is possible thanks to the generous support of our sponsors: Capital One, Microsoft, Democracy Fund, Verizon Foundation, Amazon Web Services, the United Parcel Service, BSA (Business Software Alliance) Foundation, CA Technologies, Synchrony (SYF) and the Copyright Alliance. The Challenge also owes gratitude to Representatives Bob Goodlatte and Anna G. Eshoo, co-chairs of the Congressional Internet Caucus, who requested and supported the creation of the CAC. Additionally, thank you to Representatives French Hill and Suzan DelBene for serving as 2018 App Challenge Co-chairs.