Hermes Wins Rep. Murphy’s (FL-07) 2019 Congressional App Challenge

Rep. Stephanie Murphy has named a Lake Mary student as the winner of the Congressional App Challenge in Florida’s 7th district. Lake Mary Preparatory School’s James Taintor submitted Hermes, an app that allows the user to learn and practice programming easily on a website. 

When asked why they were passionate about creating an app that educates people on programming the student replied, “Having already completed the available computer science courses at my school, I had the opportunity to be a teaching assistant for the AP Java (AP CSA) class. The biggest hurdle in the beginning of the year was setting everyone up to run code. This problem inspired me to create a simple and fast way for my friends to be able to get right into coding.” The student hopes 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.