Auteur wins Rep. Marlin Stutzman’s 2025 Congressional App Challenge in Indiana’s Third District
Rep. Marlin Stutzman has named Ishan Ramrakhiani and Rikhin Kavuru of Canterbury School and Homestead High School as the winners of the 2025 Congressional App Challenge in Indiana’s Third District. Their app Auteur is an Adobe After Effects extension that lets you edit videos using AI and natural language.
When asked what inspired the creation of Auteur, the students said, “The idea came from watching how limited today’s ‘AI video tools’ really are. Most are built for casual users on mobile platforms—they make flashy social clips, not professional edits. But as someone who’s worked in AI for years and used After Effects for creative projects, I noticed a massive gap: there was no AI copilot for professionals.
“At Y Combinator’s AI Startup School, hearing from leaders like Sam Altman and Elon Musk pushed me to think bigger. I didn’t want to just build another AI toy—I wanted to build something that could work alongside experts. After the program, I reached out to my friend and research collaborator, Rikhin Kavuru, and we started brainstorming how AI could actually understand and automate complex motion design workflows inside After Effects itself.
“That’s how Auteur was born—the first AI video editing copilot built directly into the professional software environment that creators already use. We were inspired by the idea that AI shouldn’t replace creative professionals—it should amplify them. We wanted to give editors and motion designers superpowers: tools that research the docs, generate valid ExtendScript, debug errors, understand video context, and handle repetitive tasks automatically.
In short, we built Auteur because we wanted to take AI beyond text and chat—toward true creative collaboration.”
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.