KAMI Wins Rep. McEachin’s (VA-04) 2019 Congressional App Challenge

Rep. Donald McEachin has named three Chesapeake students as the winner of the Congressional App Challenge in Virginia’s 4th district. Deep Creek High School’s Amayr Barbar, Ali Sareini and Pete Ngwa submitted KAMI, an app designed to provide healthcare officials with a more modern alternative than using the Cohen-Mansfield Agitation Inventory Test (CMAI).

When asked why they were passionate about creating an app that focuses on aiding healthcare professionals the students replied, “We expressed our ambition and enthusiasm to create a development project on a topic that we were all passionate about: Alzheimer’s. Our family members have been the victim of this disease and we have seen them suffering, so we’ve always wanted to make a difference in their lives. ” 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.