NeuroHero wins Rep. Mike Quigley’s 2023 Congressional App Challenge in Illinois’s Fifth District
Rep. Quigley has named Mithun Ganapathy Arun, an 11th grader at William Fremd High School, as the winner of the 2023 Congressional App Challenge in Illinois’s Fifth District.
When asked what inspired the creation of NeuroHero, the student said, “There are more than 6 million people that experience Cardiac Arrest each year. Of those individuals, 80% of them fall into a comatose (coma) state and are left on life support. This is an alarming problem as recognizing early signs that suggest possible neurological recovery (coming out of a coma) could encourage maintaining life support efforts, and avoid hasty decisions to withdraw life-sustaining treatments. Such decisions can prematurely deem a patient’s prognosis as unfavorable (won’t come out of a coma) based on a variety of indicators leading to unnecessary deaths. But, some cardiac arrest patients with seemingly adverse prognostic factors could still have a chance for favorable outcomes if given sufficient time for neurological recovery.
In fact, the Electroencephalogram (EEG), which shows electrical brain activity by tracking glucose absorption, is predictive of neurological outcome (recovering from the coma) based on the changes in the EEG patterns. Yet, real-time applications of EEG for prognostication are limited due to the sheer size of continuous EEG data and the lack of neurologists to analyze the EEG data, especially in rural parts of the world.
My app helps solve this increasingly prevalent problem by providing access to a better EEG based prognosis for neurological outcomes for those who lack access to Neurologists, a severe issue for people in rural areas.
Thus, for those who lack access to a Neurologist, my app gives them an opportunity for a better prognosis. For example, a primary physician from a rural area can order an EEG to be taken, and input that data into my app, providing this physician with a more accurate prognosis, allowing them to create a more effective treatment plan. This not only improves the equity within our healthcare system, it also saves countless lives that would’ve been lost without access to EEG based prognosis.”
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.