REPRESENTING THE THIRD DISTRICT OF MISSISSIPPI
 COMMITTED TO CREATING JOBS, DRIVING DOWN SPENDING AND SHRINKING THE SIZE OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.

Participate in the Congressional App Challenge

The Congressional App Challenge (CAC) is a competition aimed at encouraging U.S. high school students to learn how to code by creating their own applications. The Challenge is intended to highlight the value of computer science and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education and encourage students to engage in these fields. By encouraging and recognizing our nation’s young programming talent, Congress hopes to shine a light on the growing importance of these skills.

The 2016 Congressional App Challenge will take place November 2, 2016, and all students in Mississippi’s Third Congressional District may submit an application until that date.

Challenge participants are invited, either as individuals or as teams of up to four, to create and submit their own software application (“app”) for mobile, tablet or other computing devices on a platform of their choice. A panel of local computer science professionals and congressional representatives will judge the apps, and the winners in each district will have the honor of being recognized by Congressman Gregg Harper.

The CAC is coordinated by the Congressional Internet Caucus and the non-governmental sponsor of the project, the Internet Education Foundation.

For students, the Congressional App Challenge is a three step process:

1) REGISTER: By visiting the Congressional App Challenge website and clicking “Register” (teams of 1 to 4 members only need to register once), you’ll be directed to register for the 2016 Congressional App Challenge. (NOTE: The Congressional App Challenge website will say that the app challenge is only open for students in a participating district. Mississippi’s Third Congressional District IS a participating district.)

2) COMPETE: Review the submission process and rules and design your app! The app can be for any purpose, but here are some examples of last year’s winners. The Congressional App Challenge is open to school students, regardless of experience with coding. We highly encourage students to participate even if they’ve never coded before; the point is to learn something new. The “Resources for Students” section of the Congressional App Challenge website has a number of free resources for coders.

3) SUBMIT: As you’ll see after reviewing the submission process and rules, teams are required to make a 1-3 minute YouTube video, which is how the apps will be judged. Once you’ve recorded your video and reviewed the submission checklist, you can submit your app to be judged by our esteemed judges.

If you have any questions throughout the process, please feel free to call Congressman Harper’s Pearl office (601-932-2410) and/or review the Congressional App Challenge website.