Junior wins congressional app challenge contest

Congratulations to junior Shreya, who has won the Congressional App Challenge for District 20.

Congressman Joaquin Castro’s office announced the award this week.

Shreya’s journaling app, called Together, offers an opportunity for young people to express their thoughts and feelings.

As she explains it: “I created a web application in which a user can log events, experiences, and emotions they’re feeling. I then process what they’re saying and identify the emotion and link that emotion to the events in the journal entry along with the intensity of the emotion.

“As a user adds more and more journal entries, the journal can reveal statistics on what events, etc. make a user happier (or that the user typically associates with happiness) and what make a user sadder,” she continued. “I created this tool with the intention of being able to identify signs of certain mental illnesses (such as burnout, PTSD, etc.) in its earlier stages and help link what could be potential causes of those emotions.”

The Congressional App Challenge is an initiative of the U.S. House of Representatives, where Members of Congress host competitions in their districts for middle school and high school students.  To learn more about the program, visit: https://www.congressionalappchallenge.us.