Assets4Kids wins Rep. Matt Gaetz’s 2023 Congressional App Challenge in Florida’s First District
Rep. Gaetz has named Andrew Putman, an 11th grader at Niceville High School, as the winner of the 2023 Congressional App Challenge in Florida’s First District.
When asked what inspired the creation of Assets4Kids, the student said, “My time in the Dominican Republic this past summer inspired me to build my app. Poverty is talked about consistently in America, but the actual magnitude of how much poverty there actually is in the world and what that really looks like did not register with me until the summer. While we were in the Dominican Republic, our big project was to help the locals build a church and also to walk around and talk to the community as well as pass out water filters so the locals could have clean water. As we were walking around, all I could see was tiny shanty houses, trash, dirt, and grime. I’ve been in some pretty poor communities but nothing I had ever seen looked like this. All that being said, we were constantly reminded that we were in the good part of town and this was close to paradise compared to Haiti. The thought of people living with what I was seeing and worse compelled me to build this app to do something about all the poverty.”
This year’s Challenge saw an unprecedented level of participation, with 374 Members of the House of Representatives hosting competitions, surpassing the previous record of 340. A remarkable 11,334 students from across the United States competed in this year’s Challenge, marking an impressive increase of nearly 1,000 participants compared to the previous record set in 2019. The enthusiasm and creativity these students display is a testament to the growing interest in technology and signal a bright future for American innovation. The surge of ingenuity continued with a whopping 3,645 original applications flooding in, nearly a thousand more than the previous year’s high. This remarkable growth showcases the exceptional talent and innovation within our nation’s youth.
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. This resounding show of bipartisan support emphasizes the critical importance of STEM education in today’s rapidly evolving world. 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 2024 Congressional App Challenge will launch in May of 2024, and eligible students can pre-register for the competition now.