Driver Vision Wins Rep. DelBene’s (WA-01) 2019 Congressional App Challenge
Rep. Suzan DelBene has named two Redmond students as the winner of the Congressional App Challenge in Washington’s 1st district. Redmond High School’s Sohil Bhatia and Sayan Bhatia submitted Driver Vision, an app designed to detect distracted driving.
When asked why they were passionate about creating an app that promotes safe driving the students replied,“25% of all car accidents happen due to some type of driver distraction, causing 1.6 million car crashes each year leading to 10 fatalities and over 1200 injuries per day. Driving is a cognitively demanding activity and we need to find a way to help drivers understand this fact. Teenagers who are new to driving could also benefit from such a solution as they are being brought up in a world where the use of devices is a norm.” 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.