Gilman Students Win Prestigious Government Tech Competition

This autumn, Peter Yang ‘26 and Vivek Raghavan ‘26 won a prestigious web design competition for their creation of a task management app called EcoGoal, which is centered around environmental sustainability organizations. The award, the Congressional App Challenge, goes to the best student-designed app from Maryland’s Seventh Congressional District, which encompasses most of Baltimore City, Dundalk, and the surrounding suburbs. The competition’s winners are eligible to be featured in the capitol building, put on house.gov, waived of copyright restriction application fees, and are invited to the #HouseofCode celebration. 

The first official Congressional App Challenge was launched in 2015 under the leadership of Congresswoman Mimi Walters (R-CA) and House Minor Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY). Each member of the House of Representatives has the option to host an app challenge for their constituents. The winner of each contest is decided by the congressman with the help of judges. 

Peter chose to participate in the contest following an internship that involved using the JavaScript front-end framework React, and “decided to try and apply my skills for something else, and wanted to focus on something that could help the community around us.” To Peter, it “seemed like a good opportunity for me to explore something new and learn more about the language that I loved coding in during the summer.” Vivek and Peter decided to compete in the challenge and build the app, and give back to their community. 

After conceptualizing the idea of an environmentally-focused task management system, Peter did some experimenting in early September, “not just with the idea of the app, but also with the language itself, trying to figure out how it worked,” allowing him to create the actual app during October.

As they worked on the app, they took a break for about a week and then “got back into it,” working in the evenings on the app together. For Peter, “it took maybe 30-40 hours because I dedicated a few really solid weekends figuring out how to use the programming language or figuring out how to build the app,” which, although he felt as though he could have done it in a shorter period of time, concluded it was “pretty well spent.” 

Peter did a lot of the front-end coding due to his previous experience with React and figured out what functions the app should have, such as a planned chatbot and texting features. On the other hand, Vivek handled a lot of the back-end, working a lot with the programming language Python because they “were originally trying to implement artificial intelligence into our app, which didn’t end up working out because we had a deadline to meet” and also created the promotional video that went along with the submission. 

The app, which, though it has features that could be used by any group, is targeted towards environmental organizations, and was planned to be even more geared towards them with a planned AI bot. The bot, which would have given planning advice to these organizations, such as planning beach cleanups or helping with advocacy. But, as they noted, the app could “technically be used by any sort of organization looking to make a change” and “with just a simple rewording and replacement of the current logo, it could be converted to [be used by] any organization. It’s really just a tool.” 

Peter and Vivek are excited with how their app can contribute to their community and are looking forward to helping the world around them.