SmartECG wins Rep. Andrea Salinas’s 2025 Congressional App Challenge in Oregon’s Sixth District
Rep. Andrea Salinas has named Nitya Shah and Nimay Shah of Jesuit High School as the winners of the 2025 Congressional App Challenge in Oregon’s Sixth District. Their app SmartECG works to digitize paper ECGs and streamline medical information.
When asked what inspired the creation of SmartECG, the students said, “There was a combination of factors that inspired us to create SmartECG. We have heard of many people passing away due to Cardiovascular Disease. This made us think of what we can do to make an impact. Upon doing further research, we discovered that the ECG is the primary method of diagnosing Cardiovascular Diseases. In specific, we noticed an insufficiency in the manual interpretation of ECGs. This gave us the idea to use AI in the diagnosis of ECGs. We quickly discovered that many areas still use a paper ECG. This means using any digital processing, like AI, would be impossible. This inspired the first portion of SmartECG: the digitization. By digitizing and diagnosing an ECG, SmartECG becomes much more accessible by accommodating paper ECGs, which is not currently available.”
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.