INSPIRE. INCLUDE. INNOVATE.
The Congressional App Challenge inspires students to code, engages Members of Congress, and reaches every corner of America.
Since 2015, we have inspired tens of thousands of students nationwide to learn to code. With the support from their Member of Congress, these students have produced apps that address problems locally, nationally, and globally. The numbers don’t lie; each year we have increasing numbers of Congressional hosts and diverse student participants from underrepresented communities. By participating in the App Challenge, whether as a student participant or a Member of Congress, you join a nationwide movement to bring coding skills across the country — from Silicon Valley to Washington DC, from Mississippi to Alaska, and everywhere in between.
INSPIRE STUDENTS
To explore STEM and coding through hands-on practice
INCLUSION AND DIVERSITY
For students from underrepresented communities in tech
INNOVATE CONGRESS
By connecting policymakers to new technologies
Inspire Students
Each year the CAC grows and grows. We reach students who create incredible apps.
Between our past three competition cycles, we saw a 164% increase in student participation, among many more measured successes.
Inclusion and Diversity
In the course of a few short years, the CAC has achieved what no other initiative has been able to do: it has reached extraordinary levels of urban, suburban, and rural participation while garnering participation from underserved communities at record-setting levels.
The CAC outpaces Silicon Valley by reaching out to a wide range of students in terms of gender, race, ethnicity and geography.
Racial/Ethnic Diversity:
Large percentages of CAC participants are African American, Hispanic, or Native American as compared to Silicon Valley.
Gender Diversity:
In the past seven years, the CAC had larger percentages of female participants as compared to Silicon Valley.
Source for App Challenge Numbers: Participant Surveys
Source for Silicon Valley Numbers: Silicon Valley Diversity Chart, (C) Lee & Low Books
We expand coding skills across the country.
No other coding competition has the geographic diversity that we have. From big cities to small towns, we host competitions to make computer science accessible to everyone.
During the 117th Congress, there were App Challenges held across all 50 states, four territories, and the District of Columbia.
We bring STEM education to the areas that are typically underrepresented in the tech industry.
Code for Congress
The Congressional App Challenge is remarkably bipartisan.
The U.S. House Of Representatives is united behind the Congressional App Challenge. Leadership on both sides of the aisle created the CAC to engage both students and Members alike on the importance of computer science and STEM.
Over the past seven years we had a 70% increase in Member participation from our already stellar starting point of 197 Members!
In 2022, 335 Members of Congress hosted challenges in their districts. Those numbers roughly track to the partisan makeup of Congress — a testament to how bipartisan coding and computer science are.
