Restoring Mindsets wins Rep. Haley Stevens’ 2022 Congressional App Challenge in Michigan’s 11th District

Rep. Haley Stevens has named Priya Iyer, an 11th Grader at Novi High School, as the winner of the 2022 Congressional App Challenge in Michigan’s 11th District.

When asked what inspired the creation of Restoring Mindsets, the student said, ”Globally, it is estimated that 1 in 7 10-19 year-olds experience mental health conditions, yet these remain largely unrecognized and untreated. In recent years, many adolescents have experienced worsened emotional health and increased stress. As a high schooler and researcher, I have been working on improving mental health in my school community. I have published a research study with a team of high schoolers on the impact of self-care tools on loneliness in highschoolers and found significant results. This year, I have conducted an IRB-approved study looking at anxiety, loneliness, and satisfaction with life in my own high school and found that non-invasive tools can significantly help in addressing these issues. My friends have come and talked to me about how their stress and anxiety have led to eating disorders, hair loss, or increased feelings of drowsiness. This has only gotten worse through the pandemic and the increased amounts of school shootings and threats. I wanted to figure out a way for my friends could use an app at their convenience to help them take little steps toward improving their mental health. These issues that I was seeing related to mental health encouraged me to work with Novi City Coalition to create restoring Mindsets that look into the root of the problem and help teens cope with their emotions.”

The Congressional App Challenge smashed previous participation records in 2022. All told, 9,011 students registered for this year’s competition – creating 2,707 fully-functioning apps for 335 Members of Congress across 50 states, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Mariana Islands, American Samoa, and the District of Columbia. This year’s competition set the record for most student registrations, most apps submitted, most apps per district submitted, and most districts receiving over 20 apps. The wildly successful competition continues to impress upon House Members the importance of computer science education and the need to develop a pipeline of diverse, domestic STEM talent.


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, Rise, theCoderSchool, Apple, and others.

The 2023 Congressional App Challenge will launch in June of 2023, and eligible students can pre-register for the competition now.