Barrington High School students win Congressional App Challenge in R.I.

PROVIDENCE – Four Barrington High School students were recognized as the 2016 winners of the Congressional App Challenge for the First District of Rhode Island.
U.S. Rep. David N. Cicilline announced the winners, Haotian Lu, Zijun Weng, Shiyuan Huang and Haoran Wen, on Monday, during a visit to Barrington High School’s AP Computer Science class.
The students were recognized for designing and building the gaming app, Tap It. He presented the winning students with citations on behalf of the U.S. House of Representatives and spoke with them and their classmates about the importance of computer science education for Rhode Island’s economy.
A video preview of Tap It is available online HERE.
“These four students represent the future of Rhode Island’s economy. With the explosive growth of digital technologies and high-tech industries across the country, it is vital that we continue to nurture the next generation of coders, engineers and entrepreneurs right here in Rhode Island. Ensuring Rhode Islanders have access to good-paying jobs is always a top priority for me, and the Congressional App challenge is a great way to promote critical skills that help our students succeed,” Cicilline said in a statement.

Cicilline said Rhode Island “is already making significant progress in helping our state’s residents learn the advanced skills necessary to thrive in the 21st century.”
He said he supports federally-funded programs like Real Jobs RI that are helping train Rhode Islanders to be leaders in the field of cybersecurity.
“I am committed to working to help expand these types of opportunities,” Cicilline said.
The Congressional App Challenge, coordinated by the Congressional Internet Caucus and the Internet Education Foundation, is a competition aimed at encouraging U.S. high school students to learn how to code by creating their own applications. The Challenge is intended to highlight the value of computer science and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education and encourage students to engage in these fields.
Winners from across the country will showcase their apps to the members of Congress and members of the tech community at #HouseOfCode, a Washington, D.C.-based reception to be held in April. Their work will be featured for one year on the permanent display in the U.S. Capitol Building, and on the House.gov website. Winning students will also be awarded a portion of $50,000 in credits, donated by Amazon Web Services.

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