Norcross Announces South Jersey Winners of 2018 Congressional App Challenge

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Congressman Donald Norcross (NJ-01) announced that four members of the Haddonfield Memorial High School (HMHS) Computer Science Club have won the 2018 Congressional App Challenge for New Jersey’s First Congressional District.

The junior and senior high school students – Julian George, Dmitry Selin, Pierre Yan and Yaodong Yu – created the Haddonfield Nutrition app that empowers students and parents to learn more about the nutritional content in school lunches.

“I congratulate Julian, Dmitry, Pierre and Yaodong on their achievement in creating a technologically-savvy way to inform and educate their community about nutritional information,” said Congressman Donald Norcross. “I’m always in awe of the talent, technical skills and creativity that we have here in South Jersey and this year’s submissions were all unique and impressive.”

“The App Challenge truly was an inspiring and rewarding process,” said Dmitry Selin, a senior at HMHS. “I had fun collaborating with my four classmates, in addition to learning more about the fascinating app design process. I enjoy computer science and designing the Haddonfield Nutrition app, I hope, was a look into my future desired field.”

“Many students and parents believe that school lunches may not be healthy. By using our app, you are able to review the nutritional information data of your schools lunch, you realize the lunch is healthy. Our app helps to dispel rumors and misconceptions about nutrition,” said Julian George, a junior at HMHS. “Throughout the process of creating the app, we learned many new skills. Prior to building the app, we had to learn web design and how to code. Not only did we learn how to create an app, we also developed project management skills and strengthened our ability to work together as a team.”

The annual Congressional App Challenge is a nation-wide effort to spur interest in coding, STEM and computer-science education among middle- and high-school students.

All winners are invited to the nation’s capital for the #HouseOfCode summit, which will include a reception where students demonstrate their winning apps to Members of Congress and the tech community. Each winning district team receives one free voucher to travel to Washington, DC for the summit.

The Congressional App Challenge will publish all national winners online on December 5, 2018.