Upper School Students Win Fourth Consecutive Congressional App Challenge (FL-27)

U.S. Rep. Donna Shalala (FL-27) has announced Gulliver Prep’s Jake Charron ‘21, Joshua Delgado ‘21, Kamal Kay-Ramos ‘21, and Jordan Schmidt ‘21 as winners of the 2019 Congressional App Challenge for her Congressional district.

The group’s winning app, AED Locator, uses a person’s geolocation to find the nearest automated external defibrillator in more than 10,000 locations in Miami-Dade County. A virtual reality component is being developed in order to help people learn the nuances between AED devices. To learn more about AED Locator, click here.

Under the direction of Dean Morell and Jesse de Vera, Prep Computer Science Faculty, Gulliver students have won the last four Challenges for District FL-27. Jake Seymour ’20, Sebastian Quintero ’20, Ishan Shah ’20, Matthew Garcia ’20, Ryan Costa ’20, and Daniel Fleites-Cruz ’20 won last year’s challenge with CR Coding (formerly known as Kickstart); Gaetan Almela ’19 and Kristian Zedan ’19 took first place with their ChromaTilt app in 2017; and Vicki Rios ’17 won in 2016 with Simple Sign.

The Congressional App Challenge is a yearly competition that encourages middle and high school students to learn to code and pursue careers in computer science and STEM fields. This year marks the fifth official Challenge, and most successful to-date, as 304 Members of Congress across 48 states hosted app challenges for their student constituents. A record 10,534 students participated, yielding 2,177 original student-created apps, both of which nearly double last year’s totals.

Challenge winners from across the country will be invited to present their apps to Members of Congress and the tech community at #HouseOfCode, a reception on Capitol Hill to be held in the Spring of 2020. The group will also have an opportunity to participate in workshops and network with STEM advocates who oversee mentor programs with companies such as Apple, Google, Verizon, Amazon Web Services, Capital One, and PayPal.

“This year we had an overwhelming amount of submissions from across South Florida. As a lifelong educator, the ingenuity and hard work of our students is truly inspiring,” said Rep. Shalala. “Thank you to all the dedicated students who entered this year’s competition. I look forward to seeing what great ideas our students have in the years to come.”