RoundUp wins Rep. Hank Johnson’s 2025 Congressional App Challenge in Georgia’s Fourth District
Rep. Hank Johnson has named Max Xie and Satya Bledsoe of Fulton Science Academy as the winners of the 2025 Congressional App Challenge in Georgia’s Fourth District. Their app RoundUp is a social connection application designed to help kids build real friendships and feel included.
When asked what inspired the creation of RoundUp, the students said, “Both of us have felt socially isolated at some point when we were younger; we were rarely invited to hang-outs or sleepovers, and it was not fun because we often felt excluded and disconnected, damaging our mental health and sometimes even hindering academic performance. That experience made us realize the difficulties of making friends, especially if you are a new student and do not know when to start. This is the reason why we built RoundUp — to help others bridge the initial gap we had felt back then and to facilitate the process of fitting in.”
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.