Help4Med wins Rep. Judy Chu’s (CA-27) 2020 Congressional App Challenge

When asked what inspired the creation of Help4Med, the student said, “One day while I was doing the dishes, I was watching Cuomo Prime Time. In this episode, Chris Cuomo was discussing the lack of mental health resources for healthcare workers during this COVID-19 crisis. This issue immediately got my attention. I decided to look more into it and realized that this has been a problem even before the pandemic. This inspired me to create an app focused on tackling this issue.”

Over 6,500 students registered for the 2020 Congressional App Challenge. These students created and submitted 3,088 functioning apps, marking the end of an extremely successful Congressional App Challenge amid the COVID-19 pandemic. All told, 308 Members of Congress hosted Congressional App Challenges in their districts across 49 states, Puerto Rico, the Mariana Islands, and Washington, DC.

The CAC is an initiative of the U.S. House of Representatives, where Members of Congress host competitions 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 Internet Education Foundation provides the CAC with supplemental support. In the six years of the Congressional App Challenge, thousands of functional apps have been created by over 30,000 students, and participant demographics surpass all industry diversity metrics.