2026 Congressional App Challenge
The 2026 Congressional App Challenge is ongoing!
The CAC is an initiative of the U.S. House of Representatives, where Members of Congress host contests in their districts for middle school and high school students, encouraging them to learn to code and inspiring them to pursue careers in computer science. The non-profit Internet Education Foundation provides the CAC with supplemental staffing and support. In the first seven years of the Challenge, the CAC has inspired over 40,000 students across all 50 states to code for Congress. Thousands of functional apps have been created by students, and participant demographics surpass all industry diversity metrics.
The Congressional App Challenge is open to all students in the first Congressional District of Kentucky. To be eligible to participate in the Congressional App Challenge, you must be a middle or high school student at the time of app submission. Students may register as individuals or as teams of up to four. No more than four students are allowed to form a team. Students may compete in the district they reside in or the district they attend school in. If competing as a team, at least half of the teammates must be eligible to compete in the district in which they are participating in. If you are not sure whether you are a 1st District resident or student, click here.
A full set of rules for the Congressional App Challenge can be found here.
Student registration has opened!
To register for the 2026 Congressional App Challenge, click here.
Submissions must be in before 12:00pm Noon local time on Monday, October 26, 2026.
Any coded project is eligible – any topic, any platform, any language – as long as it was created after October 30, 2025. Students can submit work they completed in the classroom last year, in an afterschool program, summer program, or other extracurricular activity.
Spring 2026 – Student pre-registration opens.
June 1, 2026 – Challenge officially launches.
October 26, 2026 – Deadline for students to register and submit their app online.
November to December 2026 – Judging period.
December 2026 – Winner announced!
If you have questions at any point during this process, please email Jason.Tyler@mail.house.gov.
Congressman Comer can pick one winning app for the First Congressional District. Submissions will be judged on the following criteria: quality of the idea, including creativity and originality; implementation of the idea, user experience, and design; and demonstrated excellence of coding & programming skills.
Winning apps are eligible to be displayed in the U.S. Capitol and featured on the House of Representatives’ website. Winning students are also invited to the #HouseofCode Capitol Hill Reception in Washington. There may be additional prizes sponsored by App Challenge official partners.
To see examples of winners from past years, click here.