Invisible Shield wins Rep. Thomas Tiffany’s 2025 Congressional App Challenge in Wisconsin’s Seventh District
Rep. Thomas Tiffany has named Ridhi Shankar and Riya Shankar of Marshfield Middle School as the winners of the 2025 Congressional App Challenge in Wisconsin’s Seventh District. Their app Invisible Shield is engineered to solve the most critical systemic failure in youth safety: the silence that precedes tragedy.
When asked what inspired the creation of Invisible Shield, the students said, “This mission is inspired by our own true story. We were twelve years old when a crisis shattered our world: a person close to our heart was killed by a violent act of domestic abuse committed by their own father. Soon after, broken by a lifetime of silence and overwhelming guilt, her mother took her own life. This wasn’t just a tragedy; it was a devastating, formative lesson in the real cost of silence. Children facing crises cannot seek help due to fear, social stigma, and shame. The gap between a child in crisis and the help that can save them is far too wide. This silence is dangerous and has devastating, tragic consequences. Every tear tells a story, and behind it is a scarred heart. This is why we created an app that is a non-judgmental, simple, kid friendly digital diary.”
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.