TutorFlow wins Rep. Gary Palmer’s 2025 Congressional App Challenge in Alabama’s Sixth District
Rep. Gary Palmer has named Grace Ding and Michael Ding of Vestavia Hills High School and Louis Pizitz Middle School as the winners of the 2025 Congressional App Challenge in Alabama’s Sixth District. Their app TutorFlow is designed to manage and streamline the tutoring process.
When asked what inspired the creation of TutorFlow, the students said, “My brother and I both tutor for the Alabama Youth Math Club, and through this experience, we noticed how manual and time-consuming the tutoring management process was. Every step—from submitting tutoring requests, to scheduling lessons, to confirming their completion—was handled through back-and-forth emails. Tutoring hours were recorded manually in spreadsheets, which was inefficient and prone to errors.
“The challenge became even more prominent when the club prepared applications for the President’s Volunteer Service Award. Compiling and verifying each tutor’s total hours at the end of the year required a tremendous amount of effort.
“This inspired us to create an app that could streamline and automate the entire workflow. By reducing manual tasks, improving accuracy, and providing real-time tracking, we aimed to make the process smoother for administrators, tutors, and tutees alike.”
The 2025 Congressional App Challenge marked another record-setting year for the program. A total of 394 Members of the U.S. House of Representatives hosted App Challenges in their congressional districts, the highest level of participation in the program’s history. More than 13,800 students from across the country participated, submitting over 4,600 original apps focused on real-world challenges ranging from health and accessibility to education, sustainability, and civic engagement.
The Congressional App Challenge is an official initiative of the U.S. House of Representatives that encourages middle school and high school students to learn to code, explore computer science, and build practical technology solutions for their communities. Each participating Member of Congress selects a winning app from their district, and winning teams are invited to showcase their projects to Members of Congress, staff, and industry leaders at the annual #HouseOfCode celebration on Capitol Hill.
The Challenge is proudly bipartisan and reflects a shared commitment to expanding access to STEM education and preparing the next generation of American innovators for the future workforce. The program is a public-private partnership made possible through funding from the Broadcom Foundation, AWS, Infosys Foundation USA, theCoderSchool, Apple, and others.
The 2026 Congressional App Challenge will launch in May, and eligible students can pre-register for the competition now.