SPA (Summer Program Application) Wins Rep. Sablan’s (MP-00) 2019 Congressional App Challenge
Rep. Gregorio Sablan has named three Saipan students as the winner of the Congressional App Challenge in the Marianas Islands. Marianas High School’s Julia Theresa Malate, Nan Xie and Grace Zhang submitted SPA (Summer Program Application) help high school students all over the world learn and research these (US) pre-college summer programs.
When asked why they were passionate about creating an app that focuses on identifying pre-college programs the students replied, “We wanted to provide our fellow peers and many students around the world with an easier way to locate information about summer programs. Instead of searching through multiple websites and looking for who to contact, we placed it all into one app. This makes it easier and more effective for students to learn and understand the program with ease. ” 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.