GiRAPHER wins Rep. Chellie Pingree’s 2023 Congressional App Challenge in Maine’s First District
Rep. Pingree has named Matthew Fagerlund, an 11th grader at Scarborough High School, as the winner of the 2023 Congressional App Challenge in Maine’s First District.
When asked what inspired the creation of GiRAPHER, the student said, “I am really into math and have been disappointed by the lack of interest in many of my peers. It is very common that I find others using photomath to complete homework assignments instead of actually completing them. When test day comes around, they panic because they realize they do not actually know what they are doing they blame it on math being ‘hard’). The actual problem is that they never did much of the homework for practice and have nothing more than a vague memory of the lectures from the chapter. I know that the overall opinions of math as a class could be improved if out-of-class individual instruction was simpler to receive. My app seeks to fill that gap by providing the needed assistance to students completing homework assignments (without doing it for them).”
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.