Cardiognosis wins Rep. Jodey Arrington’s 2025 Congressional App Challenge in Texas’s 19th District
Rep. Jodey Arrington has named Aileen Rivera Romero of Texas Tech University High School as the winner of the 2025 Congressional App Challenge in Texas’s 19th District. Their app Cardiognosis is an adaptive learning tool that helps users practice math while monitoring their heart rate.
When asked what inspired the creation of Cardiognosis, Aileen Rivera Romero said, “I write a lot and do math on my whiteboard, but I don’t have enough space to continue working on it or save it for later if I have to solve other problems. Also, at school, teachers often erased the entire whiteboard without me getting to complete the notes. I’ve tried taking pictures of my work to save it, but really, it doesn’t help, and I can’t edit it or do anything with it, and printing it would look very weird. So I’ve been building Cardiognosis since February 2024 as a way to save writings digitally and safely and easily go back to them, as if the whiteboard were online and could continue editing. I’ve additionally added new features like sharing whiteboards with other users, sharing links, exporting to cloud storage, and saving as a PNG.”
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.