Oxygen Planner wins Rep. Nikema Williams’s 2021 Congressional App Challenge in Georgia’s Fifth District

Rep. Nikema Williams has named Asanshay Gupta from Atlanta International School as the winner of the 2021 Congressional App Challenge in Georgia’s Fifth District.

 

When asked what inspired the creation of Oxygen Planner, the student said, “Before COVID-19 started, I had worked as an intern at a medical equipment company where I had learnt about oxygen flow calculations used in ventilators. I did not want to watch from the sidelines as COVID-19 raged across the world. I discussed with my advisors the best way we can make a difference, given my passion for computer science, and experience developing apps. I was already working on this app when news about critical oxygen shortages started flooding the internet, with disastrous impact on patients who could have otherwise been treated. This motivated me to launch the app as fast as I could, working several hours each day. I wanted to make the app really useful, so it would actually make a difference, and help the medical professionals plan their oxygen demand. I reached out to people I knew who worked in adjacent fields, trying to see what they would need from an app. As I designed and built the app, I constantly asked for feedback and incorporated it into the product. When I released the app, it was very exciting to see new users pop up all over the world. So far, the apps have been used in 59 countries, on both iOS and Android platforms, with over 50,000 events and calculations performed.”

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.