Mack Kemper and Christian Thompson of Catholic High School—with their Unite SMS app designed to improve school communication between administrators, parents, students and teachers—have won first place in the 2018 Congressional App Challenge.
Rep. Garret Graves announced today the winners in Louisiana’s 6th Congressional District. Graves and 221 other members of congress launched the contest to encourage students to study computer science. For the past four months, thousands of Louisiana students coded original apps as part of district-wide competitions.
“Our app’s goal is to make an easy-to-use communication system for schools that creates two-way communication and accountability, and also can (also) be used for emergency situations,” said Kemper.
Brian Tsai, a senior from Baton Rouge High, finished second place with Urban Crisis, an app that consolidates and displays important information during an emergency. Third place went to Jeremy Worley and Mateo Rosas from Catholic for their Spend to Save app.
This was the second year Graves hosted the Congressional App Challenge for 6th-district students, with his office receiving more than 20 submissions from schools across East Baton Rouge, Ascension and West Baton Rouge parishes. A panel of six judges selected this year’s winners:
