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ALBANY, NY – Congressman Paul D. Tonko has officially announced the 2018 Congressional App Challenge winner for New York’s 20^th Congressional District: Luigi Battaglioli from Burnt Hills Ballston Lake High School whose web app, CodeGeek.org, creates “an online learning community and classroom where anyone can go to learn how to code.”

“Growing our sustainable, competitive economy here in the Capital Region depends on exceptional STEM training and education,” said Rep. Tonko. “Our Congressional App Challenge winner this year is a visionary student at Burnt Hills Ballston Lake High School who embodies this focus on STEM, putting his passion for coding to work helping others build their own coding skills. Luigi’s submission stood out in an impressive field of apps from our district, and I look forward to seeing the many ways his work inspires others to share his passion in the coming year and beyond.”

The Congressional App Challenge was launched as a national competition in 2015 by the U.S. House of Representatives. It was created to encourage students to engage competitively with their peers to encourage innovation and engagement in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). Teams of one to four individuals from across NY-20 participated by conceptualizing, planning and ultimately coding a unique application or “app” for any device using their preferred coding language. In its first three years, the Congressional App Challenge has received entries from nearly 9,000 students across 42 states.

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