Youth Incorporated Magazine

16-year-old India-origin girl Medha Gupta has won the annual Congressional App Challenge for her app ‘Safe Travel’ for which she took a record-breaking 40 hours to design, program, test, and troubleshoot.

The whole idea for the app came to her after the uneasiness she felt making the 20 minute from the bust stop to her home in Herndon, Virginia, especially during winters. It was her mother Divya who suggested developing. What was supposed to be a joke, turned out to be a light bulb moment for the Thomas Jefferson High School sophomore.

“I knew I had a problem I needed to solve”, said Medha. How the app works is that person can use their phone to program the app to send out an SOS or an alert to someone they trust if they fail to make it to their destination in the stipulated time period. The app is currently only tailored for iOS software.

“This contest is about building the domestic pipeline for the jobs of the future”, said Rachel Decoste, executive director of the App Challenge. More than 4,100 students had submitted around 1,300 apps this year. One winner was chosen for each congressional district that participated. Barbara Comstock, representative, said, “We are always delighted to see the innovation and talent that our students demonstrate through the annual Congressional App Challenge. It is this kind of skill and innovation which makes this contest so rewarding each year.”

Students who win the challenge are invited to attend a reception on Capitol Hill in April, as well as receive $250 in Amazon Web Service credits. Troy Murphy, public policy manager with the Northern Virginia Technology Council, who was also one of the judges on the panel said that he voted for Medha Gupta’s app because it “dealt with an important pressing problem.”

Medha maintains that winning the challenge wasn’t the focus, it was just to solve a problem. She was familiar with several programming languages after participating in several ‘hackathons’ where students tackle problems using technology. “Since I’m so obsessed with my phone, I wanted to learn how each app runs and what goes into creating them”, said Medha

The Congressional App Challenge is held to encourage students take up careers in science, technology, engineering, and math through coding and computer science. The challenge which was restricted to high school students till 2017, when it was opened to students right from kindergarten to grade 12 across the country.