Password Manager wins Rep. Scott Fitzgerald’s 2022 Congressional App Challenge in Wisconsin’s Fifth District
Rep. Scott Fitzgerald has named Rohit Mittal, an 11th Grader at Brookfield East High School, as the winner of the 2022 Congressional App Challenge in Wisconsin’s Fifth District.
When asked what inspired the creation of Password Manager, the student said, ”With technology advancing further and society relying more and more heavily on it, having secure credentials is a big priority for many people. According to ForgeRock, in 2021, more than 2 billion data records containing usernames and passwords were stolen by hackers. I realized my online presence is at risk of being hacked because most of my passwords were not secure. At the same time, I was interested in cybersecurity and was learning about how malware affects your computer and all the different ways your computer can no longer be yours. I realized how vulnerable your credentials are if you do not keep it in a secure place. This is when the idea of a password manager came about. I made this site as a way to motivate myself into having more secure passwords. This project would prevent me from having to worry about whether I would remember the password or not. I decided to make this into a website instead of a mobile app because I wanted to learn more about web development. I started doing some research and I stumbled upon Flask which was perfect for me as it catered to all my needs. In the end, this application helped me to learn web development at a deeper level. Also, I have made my own online presence more secure.”
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.