Compost Trading wins Rep. Joe Courtney’s (CT-02) 2020 Congressional App Challenge

When asked what inspired the creation of Compost Trading, the student said, “I have always been passionate about food wastage. Food is something that takes a lot of hard work and energy to produce and it should not be simply sent to landfills. This passion was further invigorated when I saw large amounts of food being thrown away in school cafeterias. However, preventing food wastage is a complicated global problem to tackle. Instead, I decided that I should do something productive with the waste being produced. That is when I turned to composting, a much better alternative than sending food to landfills.”

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.