HOPE: West Virginians Fighting Mental Illness wins Rep. Carol Miller’s 2021 Congressional App Challenge in West Virginia’s Third District

When asked what inspired the creation of HOPE: West Virginians Fighting Mental Illness, the students said, “There were many different factors that influenced our arrival on the specific app that we have created. The four of us took AP Computer Science Principles last year, and it sparked a passion for coding in each of us. We knew that we didn’t want to stop our app-designing endeavors with the class, so when Mr. Adam Riazi, our computer science teacher, told us about the Congressional App Challenge, it was something that we all decided we wanted to take on. After we had initially decided to enter the competition, we were tasked with figuring out what topic we wanted to create our app about. Issues surrounding mental health are something that we have all been able to see and experience firsthand through our own experiences and the experiences of those around us, so once the idea of creating an app based on mental illness awareness surfaced, it seemed like a perfect subject for us to . Not only have we each had background with mental health disorders, but we know that it is an all-around important topic to be educated on since it can influence so many other things. We also had the opportunity to expand our own knowledge of mental illness in our AP Psychology class last year that we were enrolled in at the same time as our computer science class.”