SITS: Safe In The Sun wins Rep. C. “Dutch” Ruppersberger’s 2022 Congressional App Challenge in Maryland’s Second District
Rep. C. “Dutch” Ruppersberger has named Omo Imode, an 11th Grader at Havre de Grace High, as the winner of the 2022 Congressional App Challenge in Maryland’s Second District.
When asked what inspired the creation of SITS: Safe In The Sun, the student said, ”This past summer, I got my first sunburn, even though I made sure to put sunscreen on before I went out. On further investigation, I realized you must reapply sunscreen for it to be effective throughout the day. That is why I created the sunscreen portion of my app: to serve as a reminder for me and others to apply and reapply sunscreen.
My inspiration for the water section was a little different. Being an athlete, staying hydrated is very important, but I always struggled with how much water I should drink. It was only until I went for a yearly check-up that my doctor said I was dehydrated. Baffled that I lacked something so essential, I created a water tracker that implemented exercise in its calculations.”
The Congressional App Challenge smashed previous participation records in 2022. All told, 9,011 students registered for this year’s competition – creating 2,707 fully-functioning apps for 335 Members of Congress across 50 states, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Mariana Islands, American Samoa, and the District of Columbia. This year’s competition set the record for most student registrations, most apps submitted, most apps per district submitted, and most districts receiving over 20 apps. The wildly successful competition continues to impress upon House Members the importance of computer science education and the need to develop a pipeline of diverse, domestic STEM talent.
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, Rise, theCoderSchool, Apple, and others.
The 2023 Congressional App Challenge will launch in June of 2023, and eligible students can pre-register for the competition now.