NeuroLens wins Rep. Jim McGovern’s 2025 Congressional App Challenge in Massachusetts’s Second District.
Rep. Jim McGovern has named Abhiraam Venigalla of the Massachusetts Academy of Math and Science at WPI as the winner of the 2025 Congressional App Challenge in Massachusetts’s Second District. Their app, NeuroLens, is an innovative multimodal deep-learning application for the detection, classification, and segmentation of invasive brain tumors from MRI scans, and will transform the need for quick and accurate diagnostic tools for the approximately 90,000 individuals diagnosed with a brain tumor annually in the United States alone.
When asked what inspired the creation of NeuroLens, Abhiraam Venigalla said, “I never thought that my dad’s dental office would spark a whole other interest in me. Usually, I thought that my dad’s dental tools were this big, ominous presence lingering over my mouth. However, it wasn’t until I realized their function that my interest piqued in not just dental tools, but biomedical engineering as a whole. It wasn’t until the incident with my uncle that I knew how to apply my interest in biomedical engineering to save lives. During a reunion, my uncle collapsed due to a brain tumor growing in his head, despite being diagnosed healthy a week ago. After visiting the hospital my uncle stayed at, one of the most renowned in the area, I noticed a big disparity between American hospitals and rural hospitals in India in terms of their resources. In the hospital in India, the MRI scanner had a lot of faults, forcing the doctor to take multiple scans due to the inefficiencies compared to the single click of a button and high-performance MRI scanners in America. To address this disparity, I felt compelled to build an app that accurately diagnoses brain tumors within MRIs within seconds, making high-quality healthcare not a luxury but a necessity.”
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.