Silent Safety wins Rep. Keith Self’s 2023 Congressional App Challenge in Texas’s Third District
Rep. Self has named Andrew Chen of Centennial High School, Devansh Roongta of Centennial High School, and Mihir Thakur of Lone Star High School as the winners of the 2023 Congressional App Challenge in Texas’s Third District.
When asked what inspired the creation of Silent Safety, the students said, “With a passion for technology, we sought to harness the power of programming to save lives in emergencies. After watching a video from Inside Edition about a woman calling 911 under the guise of ordering a pizza, we identified a desperate need to help those in domestic abuse situations.
Sadly, it is becoming more apparent that the US is facing a domestic abuse crisis. The CDC finds that around 1 in 3 women report having experienced severe physical violence from an intimate partner in their lifetime.
That number has only risen in recent years as the Council on Criminal Justice finds that reports of domestic violence have increased 8%.
Thus, we came up with Silent Safety, a mobile iOS app that speaks to 911 on your behalf when you can’t make noise. After months of programming, pitching, and collaborating with experts our vision turned into reality. Overall, we wanted to find a way to help these people with the resources we had, and apply our programming knowledge to solve real-world problems. Silent Safety was the result.”
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.