North Royalton High School students Akshaj Satyawada and Eshaan Satyawada have been named winners of the 2023 Congressional App Challenge in Ohio's Seventh District by Rep. Max Miller. Their winning app, MindMatters, is designed to provide mental health resources, exercises, and support for children, teens and adults in a tech-friendly way.
When asked about their inspiration, the students explained, "Witnessing mental health struggles first-hand in our community played a major role in the development of our app. As adolescents, we are seeing how mental health issues are causing a global crisis for teenagers around the world. There is a lack of resources to help guide young, tech-savvy kids and teens, so we decided to create the MindMatters app. It gives teens, as well as adults, the resources they need to maintain good mental health or get help if needed, all through a simple, tech-focused platform."
The Congressional App Challenge, an official U.S. House of Representatives initiative, encourages middle and high school students to learn coding skills and explore careers in computer science. This year's challenge saw unprecedented engagement, with 374 Members of Congress hosting district competitions - surpassing the previous record of 340 participating members of the House. There were 11,334 students from across the nation submitted a total of 3,645 original app creations, nearly 1,000 more apps than the prior record set in 2019.
As district winners, Akshaj and Eshaan joined other winning teams from across the country to showcase their MindMatters app at the annual #HouseOfCode festival on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. The Congressional App Challenge is made possible through private-public partnerships and funding from technology companies and organizations like Omidyar Network, Amazon Web Services, Rise, theCoderSchool and Apple.