Syntoma wins Rep. Daniel Webster’s 2024 Congressional App Challenge in Florida’s 11th District
Rep. Daniel Webster has named Jainish Patel of Lake Minneola High School and Ayush Bheemaiah of Cupertino High School as the winners of the 2024 Congressional App Challenge in Florida’s 11th District.
When asked what inspired the creation of Syntoma, the students said, “The main inspiration that motivated to create this app was the COVID-19 pandemic, which left a significant impact on the world just a few years ago. COVID-19, a highly widespread respiratory disease, had pneumonia as one of the prevalent symptoms. We both have family in remote areas in India, and we realized that a large number of patients were often not diagnosed due to the extensive wait times associated with diagnosing. In fact, a large number of services associated with diagnosis are expensive, instilling another roadblock in the diagnosing process. Another motivation we shared were direct family members who were severely affected by knee injuries and cases of pneumonia or other rampant chest diseases. We were further inspired by recent advancements such as early stage breast cancer detection by MIT, which confirmed the feasibility of our project and highlighted its potential for significant real world application. Overall, these factors sparked us to create our platform for early stage diagnosis detection in order to remedy these issues. Our main focus was on accessibility when developing this platform as life-saving advancements are made but not always open to remote areas. By hosting our platform on the cloud, any clinic around the world can use it.”
This year’s Congressional App Challenge set new records, with an unprecedented 382 Members of the House of Representatives hosting competitions—surpassing the previous high of 374. An incredible 12,682 students from across the country participated, representing a growth of over 1,000 students compared to 2023. These talented students submitted an astounding 3,881 original applications, showcasing their creativity, passion for technology, and the limitless potential of America’s next generation of innovators. This surge in participation reflects the increasing excitement around STEM and highlights a bright future for American innovation.
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. This resounding show of bipartisan support emphasizes the critical importance of STEM education in today’s rapidly evolving world. 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 the Broadcom Foundation, AWS, Rise, theCoderSchool, Apple, and others.
The 2024 Congressional App Challenge will launch in May of 2025, and eligible students can pre-register for the competition now.