Congressional App Challenge Announces Partnership with ThinkSTEAM
Washington, D.C. – Today, the 2017 Congressional App Challenge (CAC) announced its partnership with ThinkSTEAM, a non-profit organization based in New York’s Westchester County, which aims to encourage young girls in K-12 to engage in STEM. ThinkSTEAM connects girls interested in STEM with resources such as workshops and mentor programs to increase female participation in STEM programs and careers.
The Congressional App Challenge is proud to partner with an organization focused on bridging the opportunity gap in the tech education space. ThinkSTEAM is a founded by a young leader and othi Ramaswamy’s passion is infectious.”
–Rachel Décoste, Director, Congressional App Challenge
Encouraging young women to code and develop apps today will empower them to leverage computer science to make a difference in the future. Looking forward to a great partnership between ThinkSTEAM and the Congressional App Challenge!”
-Jothi Ramaswamy, Founder, ThinkSTEAM
Jothi Ramaswamy, the founder and CEO of ThinkSTEAM, is currently a Junior at Lakeland High School. Her passion for coding and the sciences led her to found ThinkSTEAM to encourage and help fellow young women succeed in STEM fields.
Together, the Congressional App Challenge and ThinkSTEAM aim to increase the number of Congressional App Challenge participants by reaching out to students who love to code in Westchester County and the rest of the United States. Currently the Empire state has 12 Members of Congress participating in the 2017 Congressional App Challenge. This number has doubled since 2015. Through this partnership, our goal is to eventually reach 100% Congressional participation and provide a larger range of students access to the challenge.
Nationwide, over 215+ Members of Congress are hosting district-wide App Challenges this year. Students in high school or below have until November 1, 2017 to submit an app on CongressionalAppChallenge.us.
About the Congressional App Challenge
The CAC is a congressional initiative, managed by the Internet Education Foundation [IEF], a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. In the first 2 years of the program yielded 239 challenges across 33 states. Over 1,150 apps have been created by nearly 4,000 students, and participant demographics surpassed all industry diversity metrics, with young women representing 30% of all competitors.
For more information contact:
Congressional App Challenge
www.CongressionalAppChallenge.us
ThinkSTEAM