EarXam wins Rep. Andrew Garbarino’s 2025 Congressional App Challenge in New York’s Second District

When asked what inspired the creation of EarXam, Samvath Karanam said, “Early diagnosis of ear diseases is critical. If action isn’t taken, ear diseases could fester, causing numerous serious problems, including loss of hearing ability. Many people don’t have quick and easy access to healthcare, and ear diseases that go unnoticed could be dangerous. I was inspired to create this app after learning about how many ear diseases can go unnoticed at first, but fester and cause problems later on, problems that could have been prevented had the person checked their ear for diseases from time to time. In many places in the world, it isn’t always easy to get a doctor’s appointment and get your ear checked, so I decided it would be a good opportunity for a free app that checks your ear for diseases quickly and privately through your mobile phone.

“Privacy was a huge concern when I was planning this app, as I wanted to ensure that personal medical data was never outside the user’s control. That’s why I designed my app to never access external servers and run the entire machine learning model directly on the user’s smartphone, without needing to send the user’s data anywhere that they didn’t want to send it to. I also wanted my app to be used in areas without consistent internet access, as many places in the world struggle with inconsistent internet, so I designed my app to work completely offline. Throughout the entire process of conducting an ear exam, the user will never need to access the internet at all, to ensure that the app can be used by the people who need it the most. I was encouraged to create this app by my grandfather, who is currently deaf, and it means a lot to help people identify and monitor their ear issues before they become dangerous to their health.”