CAC: How did participating in the Congressional App Challenge contribute to your personal journey, career path, and accomplishments so far?

VP: It helped solidify that computer science was the major for me. It made me comfortable with taking bigger risks and seeking new opportunities to apply my skills.

CAC: Try to remember back to competing in the CAC – what was your app about and why did you create it?

VP: I created Crime Watch to help create a one-stop-shop for crime data, bringing in multiple data streams into a single, unified view.

Py-iMessenger was made to help businesses navigate difficulties created by the COVID-19 Pandemic by allowing businesses to quickly spin up infrastructure which could be used for taking in orders and handling customer interactions through iMessage.

CAC: What are you most proud of in your academic or professional career thus far?

VP: I am most proud of the time I spent building BlueHandCoding. What started as a fun project has blossomed into something I never could’ve imagined. From being able to teach programming to working with some of the coolest companies out there, BlueHandCoding has been a huge part of the last 5 years of my life.

CAC: Let’s look into the future – where do you hope to be in 2035?

VP: More or less in the same boat. Enjoying college, building fun projects, and meeting cool people.

CAC: What excites you most about the future of technology and innovation?

BG: The democratization of building. There are so many people out there with such cool ideas that they’ll finally be able to act on!