Virtual ATM Wins Rep. Kelly’s (IL-02) 2019 Congressional App Challenge
Rep. Robin Kelly has named a Kankakee student as the winner of the Congressional App Challenge in Illinois’s 2nd district. Kankakee High School’s David Love submitted Virtual ATM, an app that allows the user to access controls which withdraw and deposit fake money into their accounts.
When asked why they were passionate about creating an app that assists a person with managing money the student replied, “In the real world, login systems and databases are the foundation of every system that needs profiles and internet connectivity. Having a database and a login system are the roots of a massive, large scale application for basically every application. When combining this with money, I figured this would be perfect as it would combine the two things I wanted to learn and gain real world experience.” 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.