Pallone Announces Winners of 2024 Congressional App Challenge

New Brunswick, NJ - Today, Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr. (NJ-06) announced the winners of the 2024 Congressional App Challenge for high school and middle school students in New Jersey’s 6th Congressional District. Ekya Dogra, Sahil Ghosh, and Adithiya Venkatakrishnan from Edison Academy Magnet School won this year’s competition. Their app “RADR” is a technology concept to enhance amber alerts and assist in child abduction cases. Their core mission is to provide a faster, more efficient way of not just tracking abducted children, but any suspected vehicles supplementing law enforcement officers with autonomous technology.

“The Congressional App Challenge is an important platform for students to showcase their technical and creative skills,” said Pallone. “I congratulate Ekya, Sahil, and Adithiya for their winning app and applaud all of this year’s participants for their creativity. Year after year, the Congressional App Challenge never fails to bring out the best, brightest, and most innovative ideas from students across our district. I continue to be impressed by the ingenuity displayed by the winning teams each year and would like to thank the judges for their engagement and attention to this year’s contest. As the Ranking Member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, I have seen how critical innovative technology is in creating new industries and opportunities for all Americans. I will continue to support investments in STEM education in New Jersey and across the country.”

The RADR proposal works in three separate systems, which tie together to provide autonomous amber alert tracking. Including, a custom network of dashcams, AI servers, and a web portal built for RADR camera owners and law enforcement officers. The custom dashcams can be used as regular dashcams by civilians. This offers a benefit to both civilians and law enforcement, as the former can use their dashcams for regular security, and law enforcement can use a network of increasingly growing RADR dashcams. They may also send notifications to one another if necessary.

The Congressional App Challenge is an annual competition that highlights the value of computer science and STEM education by encouraging high school and middle school students to learn how to code through the creation of their own apps. Entries in New Jersey's 6th Congressional District were assessed by a panel of local experts on several criteria, including demonstrated knowledge of coding and programming skills as well as the quality and implementation of their ideas.

As the winning app in the contest, "RADR" will be displayed on the Congressional App Challenge Website (https://www.congressionalappchallenge.us/) and on a digital display in the Capitol Building this year.