MisFire wins Rep. Bennie Thompson’s 2022 Congressional App Challenge in Mississippi’s Second District
Rep. Bennie Thompson has named Mason Smith of Jackson Career Development Center, Drew Overton of Callaway, Adyn Bolds of Lanier, and Zavien Willams of Wingfield as the winners of the 2022 Congressional App Challenge in Mississippi’s Second District.
When asked what inspired the creation of MisFire, the students said, ”Gun violence is a leading cause of premature death in the U.S. Guns kill more than 38,000 people and cause nearly 85,000 injuries each year. And in Mississippi alone, there were over 710 firearm deaths in 2019, averaging out at two people a day, and 64 of those deaths were children (age ranged 0-19), with numbers increasing every year. Our goal is to open people’s eyes to the very real impact of gun violence in American communities in an effective, proactive way, giving people a space to vent and create a sense of community, as well as giving resources on how to properly engage conflict and manage impulsive behavior. ”
The Congressional App Challenge smashed previous participation records in 2022. All told, 9,011 students registered for this year’s competition – creating 2,707 fully-functioning apps for 335 Members of Congress across 50 states, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Mariana Islands, American Samoa, and the District of Columbia. This year’s competition set the record for most student registrations, most apps submitted, most apps per district submitted, and most districts receiving over 20 apps. The wildly successful competition continues to impress upon House Members the importance of computer science education and the need to develop a pipeline of diverse, domestic STEM talent.
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, Rise, theCoderSchool, Apple, and others.
The 2023 Congressional App Challenge will launch in June of 2023, and eligible students can pre-register for the competition now.