Go Green Wins Rep. Schiff’s (CA-28) 2019 Congressional App Challenge
Rep. Adam Schiff has named four Burbank students as the winner of the Congressional App Challenge in California’s 28th district. Burbank High School’s Armen Arkelyan, Jhan Pogosyan, Leah Breyer and Haroutyun Joulfayan submitted Go Green, an app that spread awareness on climate change issues and allows people to assess their daily habits.
When asked why they were passionate about creating an app that promotes climate awareness the students replied, “We were inspired to create this app by the little attention put into the modern problem of global warming. Even though this isn’t a solution to climate change, the goal of our app is to create something that can help people view their basic habits and maybe promote change.” They hope to encourage other students to better their communities by using their computer science skills.
Over 10,000 students registered for the 2019 Congressional App Challenge. These students created and submitted 2,177 functioning apps, marking the end of the most successful Congressional App Challenge to date. All told, 304 Members of Congress hosted Congressional App Challenges in their districts across 48 states, Puerto Rico, the Mariana Islands, and Washington, D.C.
The CAC is an 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. The non-profit Internet Education Foundation provides the CAC with supplemental staffing and support. In the five years of the Congressional App Challenge, the program has yielded 1134 App Challenges across 48 states. Thousands of functional apps have been created by over 25,000 students, and participant demographics surpass all industry diversity metrics.