Cure wins Rep. Brett Guthrie’s 2021 Congressional App Challenge in Kentucky’s Second District
Rep. Brett Guthrie has named Emma Bunch from Glasgow High School as the winner of the 2021 Congressional App Challenge in Kentucky’s Second District.
When asked what inspired the creation of Cure, the student said, “My dream is to become a physician-scientist (MD/PhD) in pediatric oncology. I want to combine medicine with research to help advance the field of oncology. I want to be that haven where patients and their families can confide in while in one of the darkest times of their lives. I want to do something about this field. I want to help find cures (hence the name of the app) for cancer, and offer hope to patients, their families, and future generations. The industry has come so far since the 1960s, and if we can keep advancing and keep innovating in our healthcare system, we can make leaps and bounds towards more cures and a lower death rate. Compassion is so important in the field of oncology, and something that if lost, would annihilate the purpose of being a doctor. I wanted to create an app that showed that same compassion towards patients, their families, or just the common civilian. I wanted to create this app to inform them about cancer, so they can inform others. I wanted to spread awareness so we can get more people involved in the fight to cure cancer. I wanted to create this app in hopes to spark a flame in the life of a patient that may be hanging on by a thread to tell them to keep fighting.”
The 2021 Congressional App Challenge yielded 2,101 fully functioning apps. After eighteen months of disruptions to educational cadences for students everywhere, the Congressional App Challenge came roaring back with 7,174 students registering for this year’s competition. All told, 340 Members of Congress hosted Congressional App Challenges in their districts across 50 states, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Mariana Islands, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Washington, D.C.
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. 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, theCoderSchool, Facebook, Replit, Accenture, and others.
The 2022 Congressional App Challenge will launch in June of 2022, and eligible students can pre-register for the competition now.