Accelerate wins Rep. Steve Womack’s 2023 Congressional App Challenge in Arkansas’s Third District
Rep. Womack has named Queenie Lin, a 12th grader at Haas Hall, as the winner of the 2023 Congressional App Challenge in Arkansas’s Third District.
When asked what inspired the creation of Accelerate, the student said, “Haas Hall Academy Fayetteville is not your typical school. We don’t have a cafeteria, so we order lunch from local restaurants, and a club is in charge of handing out orders each day. Students who want to order lunch write their name and order on a piece of paper, and club members have to go through all the papers to find a specific order since it’s not alphabetical or by order. This leads to a delay in handing out orders and the lunch line doesn’t shorten throughout the entire lunch period. Students also frequently cut the line. We only have 30 minutes to eat lunch and by the time I pick up my order, 20 minutes have already passed. Students are also handed the wrong order sometimes. After students began complaining about the lunch system, I knew I needed to do something about it.”
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.