Orbit wins Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks’s 2023 Congressional App Challenge in Iowa’s First District
Rep. Miller-Meeks has named Ishika Desai of Pleasant Valley High School and Nishita Gudipati of Pleasant Valley High School as the winners of the 2023 Congressional App Challenge in Iowa’s First District.
When asked what inspired the creation of Orbit, the students said, “We were inspired to create this app by our passion to assist students in leading productive, organized, and happy lives. Through our experiences as students, we discovered that it is extremely difficult to balance school with other aspects of our lives. We also discovered that because of this, many of our peers faced extreme stress and had deteriorating mental health.
In the beginning stages of our high school journey, we struggled with managing assignments, staying focused, balancing mental health, and not having proper resources to supplement our academics. These initial challenges led us to realize that if we had a way to alleviate these difficulties, our lives would become much more productive and organized.
From this realization, we decided to program an ‘all-in-one’ productivity app that contains a planner for task management, a focus timer to incentivize the user to finish their tasks, and a resources page to supplement students academically. We created Orbit as an accessible platform for students to lead productive and happy lives so they can work efficiently and also protect their mental health.”
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.