Pathway wins Rep. Mark Green’s 2022 Congressional App Challenge in Tennessee’s Seventh District
Rep. Mark Green has named Srikar Kusumanchi of Ravenwood High School, Om Joshi of International Academy, Max Xiao of International Academy, and Jason Wang of Ravenwood High School as the winners of the 2022 Congressional App Challenge in Tennessee’s Seventh District.
When asked what inspired the creation of Pathway, the students said, ”In 2018, around 39% of the population stated that they didn’t seek mental health because it was too costly. People are unable to find proper therapy because of lack of proper information and oftentimes simple notifications can provide the motivation for someone who is down. Cost acts as a barrier between those that can obtain medical assistance and those that can’t. We realized all of this when many people at and outside of our schools sought therapy for many different reasons, but they had regrets and hesitance while doing so because of the cost. Especially in the midst of a pandemic, the financial conditions of many families became fragile. We wanted to make it a leveled field for everyone because the right to life should not be decided by wealth. People have also lost time and money by trying to solve their needs through therapy. That’s why we created an app that will provide a pathway for many people to gain free advice/recommendations and resources for their therapeutic needs by congregating different therapeutics and advice in one, simple-to-use mobile app. ”
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.