DailyBuddy wins Rep. Andrew Garbarino’s 2021 Congressional App Challenge in New York’s Second District

Rep. Andrew R. Garbarino has named James Toscano from Seaford High School as the winner of the 2021 Congressional App Challenge in New York’s Second District.

When asked what inspired the creation of DailyBuddy, the student said, “I was inspired to create this app because mental health is a huge problem among teens. Many teens experience depression and often suicidal thoughts. A major factor is because they are not able to express their feelings to anyone, they feel alone and scared. They hide behind a fake smile and go on with their day. I wanted to create this app to make a space where they could express everything they want to and make it seem like there is always someone who wants to listen to them without judgment.”

The 2021 Congressional App Challenge yielded 2,101 fully functioning apps. After eighteen months of disruptions to educational cadences for students everywhere, the Congressional App Challenge came roaring back with 7,174 students registering for this year’s competition. All told, 340 Members of Congress hosted Congressional App Challenges in their districts across 50 states, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Mariana Islands, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Washington, D.C.

The Congressional App Challenge is an official 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. Each participating Member of Congress selects a winning app from their district, and each winning team is invited to showcase their winning app to Congress during our annual #HouseOfCode festival. The program is a public-private partnership made possible through funding from Omidyar Network, AWS, theCoderSchool, Facebook, Replit, Accenture, and others.

The 2022 Congressional App Challenge will launch in June of 2022, and eligible students can pre-register for the competition now.