Lunchweek Wins Rep. Escobar’s (TX-16) 2019 Congressional App Challenge

Rep. Veronica Escobar has named two El Paso students as the winner of the Congressional App Challenge in Texas’s 16th district. Parkland Middle School’s Daniel Avalos and  D’Andre Ramiirez submitted Lunchweek, an app designed to prevent school lunch waste and shorter cafeteria lines. 

When asked why they were passionate about aiding school cafeteria’s the students replied, “What inspired us was seeing all the people that need food and live on the streets and starve. Meanwhile, at school we saw all of this perfect food being thrown away by workers because it’s left over.” 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.