Fresh Hub Wins Rep. Fletcher’s (TX-07) 2019 Congressional App Challenge
Rep. Lizzie Fletcher has named four Houston students as the winner of the Congressional App Challenge in Texas 7th district. Bellaire High School’s Shirley Zhu, Caleb Hu, Miles Mackenzie and Annie Zhu submitted Fresh Hub, an app that helps people living in food deserts lead healthy lifestyles by connecting them to Fresh Hub markets and providing nutrition education.
When asked why they were passionate about creating an app that promotes nutritional knowledge the students replied, “After seeing the vibrant people in the community at the Fresh Hub markets and speaking with them about how they believe food insecurity could be solved, we were motivated to create an app that helps connect community members to the Fresh Hub markets.” 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.