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

YK: Participating in the Congressional App Challenge was the first time I attempted to learn how to build software, as well as work with and lead a team. The sleepless nights spent debugging our app was all the more rewarding when our team was selected as Congressional App Challenge Champions. The Congressional App Challenge gave me the confidence and backing to kickstart my journey into software development, which opened up doors that have led to where I am today, working on a startup that handles millions of user interactions per day.

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

YK: Our app, Food4All was built to help nonprofit organizations drives reduce food waste, congestion, and coordinate volunteer shifts. I was volunteering at a food drive with FOCUS, a local Orange County nonprofit, and noticed that they often either had too much food, or would run out, since it was hard to estimate how many families would be coming by the food drive, and there were often extremely long lines. With an app where people could sign up for different time slots, we hoped to eliminate the congestion while also providing more accurate estimates to our nonprofit partners.

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

YK: I’m most proud of creating MathGPT, an AI learning tool which helps over 10 million students today learn math. In high school and college, I often struggled understanding math concepts and would turn to resources like Youtube and Khan Academy, which gave me clear, easy to understand explanations and often included visuals or practice questions, which are both tightly integrated into MathGPT. With MathGPT, I felt like I’ve been able to build a product that I wished I had when I was in high school, and with every user testimonial I feel more grateful that I get to wake up everyday and help them.

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

YK: I hope to be still learning new things, experimenting with new technology, and having the privilege to build solutions for the world at scale, making everyone’s lives better.

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

YK: I’m most excited about the vast abundance that will be made possible by advancements in AI, general autonomy, and biology. The laws of physics have not yet been pushed to their limits. For example, you could imagine instead of taking years to build your dream home, a team of humanoid robots could complete it in an afternoon. Additionally, technology is only becoming more and more accessible to everyone in the world, making it the great equalizer; you and the richest people in the world have access to the same smartphones, AI models, computers, and more, which is very exciting!