Thrive wins Rep. Joyce Beatty’s 2025 Congressional App Challenge in Ohio’s Third District
Rep. Joyce Beatty has named Vaishnavi Rachuri and Alice Clark of Dublin Jerome High School and The Wellington School as the winners of the 2025 Congressional App Challenge in Ohio’s Third District. Their app Thrive is designed to support students, teachers, and community members in maintaining healthy gardens.
When asked what inspired the creation of Thrive, the students said, “The Congressional App Challenge’s main goal is to foster the growth of young programmers so that they can give back to their communities. We wanted to tackle an environmental problem with our app while spreading awareness and showing that anyone, including children, can have an impact on the environment. The environment’s safety is a collaborative effort, and many schools in our area have recognized this.
“However, maintaining a garden can be difficult. Ourselves, being high school students, struggle to keep a singular plant alive—to expect this tenfold from elementary school students is unreasonable.
“Thrive addresses these challenges by providing an easy-to-use platform designed specifically for school gardens managed by students themselves. The app streamlines garden care, making it simple for students to participate in planting, watering, and ongoing maintenance with age-appropriate guidance. As a result, students gain valuable experience in responsibility and teamwork.”
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.