Andy’s Donuts wins Rep. Grace Napolitano’s 2021 Congressional App Challenge in California’s 32nd District
Rep. Grace Napolitano has named Andrew Smithwick, Julia Heathery, Azellah Sorra, and Matthew Hui of Monrovia High as the winners of the 2021 Congressional App Challenge in California’s 32nd District.
When asked what inspired the creation of Andy’s Donuts, the students said, “Prior to the covid-19 pandemic our team’s favorite place to hang out was local tea shop, Loose Teas. As members of the tight knit Monrovia Community when the pandemic hit we saw our favorite shop struggle. However, witnessing their ability to stay strong through everything that COVID threw at them inspired us into action. So, we decided to create a world for our community to celebrate and continue to enjoy our favorite local businesses from the comfort and safety of their own homes.”
The 2021 Congressional App Challenge yielded 2,101 fully functioning apps. After eighteen months of disruptions to educational cadences for students everywhere, the Congressional App Challenge came roaring back with 7,174 students registering for this year’s competition. All told, 340 Members of Congress hosted Congressional App Challenges in their districts across 50 states, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Mariana Islands, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Washington, D.C.
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, theCoderSchool, Facebook, Replit, Accenture, and others.
The 2022 Congressional App Challenge will launch in June of 2022, and eligible students can pre-register for the competition now.