MedicMate Wins Rep. Axne’s (IA-03) 2019 Congressional App Challenge
Rep. Cynthia Axne has named three Clive students as the winner of the Congressional App Challenge in Iowa’s 3rd district. Waukee High School’s Owen Scott, Arya Karnik and Shriya Magatapalli submitted MediMate, an app that allows paramedics to easily communicate information regarding their patient’s condition with the trauma team at the hospital.
When asked why they were passionate about creating an app that aids patients the students replied, “Our app, Medic Mate now aims to connect paramedics to trauma teams. Until now, the trauma team has been forced to understand the patient’s condition on a quick exchange of words. This can easily lead to miscommunication between the paramedics and the trauma team, making it difficult for the patient to receive the proper care as quickly as possible.” They hope to encourage other students to better their communities by using their computer science skills.
Over 10,000 students registered for the 2019 Congressional App Challenge. These students created and submitted 2,177 functioning apps, marking the end of the most successful Congressional App Challenge to date. All told, 304 Members of Congress hosted Congressional App Challenges in their districts across 48 states, Puerto Rico, the Mariana Islands, and Washington, D.C.
The CAC is an 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. The non-profit Internet Education Foundation provides the CAC with supplemental staffing and support. In the five years of the Congressional App Challenge, the program has yielded 1134 App Challenges across 48 states. Thousands of functional apps have been created by over 25,000 students, and participant demographics surpass all industry diversity metrics.