Haven wins Rep. Carolyn Maloney’s 2022 Congressional App Challenge in New York’s 12th District
Rep. Carolyn Maloney has named Madeline Wadsworth, an 11th Grader at Convent of the Sacred Heart, as the winner of the 2022 Congressional App Challenge in New York’s 12th District.
When asked what inspired the creation of Haven, the student said, ”The issues discussed through the app are problems that millions of women face on a daily basis. Especially with the recent overturning of Roe vs Wade, the discussion of women’s rights is even more important. Although we understand that our app isn’t going to fix the systemic issues against women overnight we at least aim to help a few people who are struggling and educate others on how to help those who are through providing access to resources without stigma or misinformation. Within this overarching goal is the hope to break stigma around periods, encourage more girls to engage in positive dialogue about their bodies, and to raise awareness about domestic abuse by helping to provide access to helpful websites to help people get out of those difficult situations.”
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.