Today, U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor (FL14) announced that Aashi Shrivastava (8^th Grade) and Aditi Shrivastava (6^th Grade), students at Tampa’s Terrace Community Middle School, were awarded the top prize in her annual congressional app challenge with their app, “Career Exploration.” The app was created through block code and aims to help high school students discover their career passions and choose academic classes that will help them achieve their goals. The winners will be recognized at the U.S. Capitol for the House of Code celebration in the spring alongside other winners of congressional app competitions from throughout the country.

“We were inspired to create this app because we were facing difficulties thinking of which high schools we wanted to attend that would help us with what we wanted to do later in life, and we wanted to know more about how to achieve our goals.” said Aashi and Aditi about “Career Exploration.”

A video demonstration of Aashi and Aditi’s app is available here.

According to the National Girls Collaborative Project, female scientists and engineers are concentrated in different occupations than men, with relatively high shares of women in the social sciences (60%) and biological, agricultural, and environmental life sciences (48%) and relatively low shares in engineering (15%) and computer and mathematical sciences (26%).

“Encouraging students to explore STEM fields through the app challenge is a great way to help younger generations learn about science and technology in a creative manner and spark their interest in the STEM workforce. This challenge helps communities who often do not have the opportunity to learn coding and are underrepresented in the STEM field by awarding them for their work at the highest level. I’m grateful for the dedication to science, technology, diversity and inclusion in the Tampa Bay area and look forward to Aashi and Aditi representing our community in the halls of the U.S. Capitol this year,” said Rep. Castor.  

The House of Code featuring the student’s app will be featured at the U.S. Capitol in the spring of 2023. For more information about the Congressional App Challenge and how to be involved in Rep. Castor’s 2023 challenge, visit HOME - (congressionalappchallenge.us).

Photos from the event can be viewed here.