#HouseOfCode Inspires House of Representatives / STEM & CSEd

On Monday and Tuesday, April 3-4, the Internet Education Foundation was proud to host two days of programming as part of #HouseOfCode, a celebration of the 2016 Congressional App Challenge winners.

On Monday, April 3, the #HouseOfCode events kicked off with a Welcome Reception hosted by Amazon Web Services.The American Libraries Association, the US Patent And Trade Office, MentorMint, and AWS Educate set up booths and shared information about their programs with the students. Rhianon Anderson, Executive Director of the Congressional App Challenge, and Shannon Kellogg, Director of Public Policy for the Americas gave remarks to more than 150 students and their families.

The 2016 CAC winners started Tuesday, April 4 by attending “Computer Science, Coding, and Beyond: Career Options in the Tech Community,” a program hosted by Microsoft at their Innovation and Policy Center.

Allyson Knox, Microsoft’s Director of Education Policy, welcomed the students and introduced keynote speaker Representative Suzan DelBene. The Congresswoman spoke to the students about her experience working in both tech and policy realms, and encouraged them to make a difference in the world by pursuing their passions. The Congresswoman’s speech was followed by a panel of tech professionals, moderated by Austin Carson (Executive Director, TechFreedom), and featuring panelists Rachel Bittner (Engineer, Spotify), Clara Tsao (Presidential Innovation Fellow), and Matt Legend (CEO of Legend). (Check out the video, here! Skip ahead to the 22 minute mark to get to the programming.) After leaving Microsoft, the students and their families headed to Capitol Hill to visit the Capitol Building display that features the CAC-winning apps.

The programming culminated with #HouseOfCode, a Demo Day and Reception held in the Rayburn Foyer on Capitol Hill (generously sponsored by Intel), where the students presented the incredible apps that won their district’s Congressional App Challenge. #HouseOfCode featured students from 51 Congressional Districts and 22 states. 37 Members of Congress attended, in support of their students and the Congressional App Challenge.

Over 500 supporters of computer science education attended #HouseOfCode in total. Guests heard remarks from the CAC Executive Director, the Congressional Internet Caucus Co-Chairs, and several of the past, present and future CAC Congressional Co-Chairs. Reps. Ed Royce and Seth Moulton announced their successors: Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL-27) and Rep. Tim Ryan (OH-13) will serve as the co-chairs of the 2017 Congressional App Challenge! The speakers included:

In less than two years, the Congressional App Challenge has reached nearly 4,000 students in 33 states. Congressional offices have hosted 239 successful challenges, and received the submission of nearly 1200 original, student-coded apps. The success of the Congressional App Challenge has been made possible thanks to the widespread bipartisan congressional support for the program, and thanks to the generosity of our sponsors and partners.

#HouseOfCode was made possible by the generous support of these sponsors:


 

Thank you to all who supported #HouseOfCode and the Congressional App Challenge!