Vantage AI wins Rep. Ben Cline’s 2025 Congressional App Challenge in Virginia’s Sixth District
Rep. Ben Cline has named Iacopo Schianchi of John Handley High School as the winner of the 2025 Congressional App Challenge in Virginia’s Sixth District. Their app Vantage AI is an AI research assistant that helps researchers and students find answers based on scientific literature.
When asked what inspired the creation of Vantage AI, Iacopo Schianchi said, “I was inspired to develop Vantage after noticing that many LLM search tools using retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) often cite unreliable sources. These systems frequently use unreliable, irrelevant, and non-scientific sources, even when instructed to only cite research papers. This can result in false claims and misinformation, so I wanted to create a system that would solely rely on research papers as the basis for each response.”
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.