Over the summer of 2024, Peter Yang ’26 and Vivek Raghavan ’26 joined forces to start a new Upper School club at Gilman focused on the environment and community service. As they collaborated on ideas and planning, they found themselves lost in a disorganized sea of Google documents, text messages, and emails.

This experience led them to spend dozens of hours over the course of a month developing a productivity app they named EcoGoal. Yang worked on the front end, learning to code in Javascript in a framework called React, while Raghavan focused on the back end, working with Python and building his skills in a Google service called Firebase.

“We figured it would be super cool to have an app that lets you communicate with club members and keep track of goals,” Raghavan said. “It was a solution to a problem we faced.” They submitted the project to the Congressional App Challenge, a nationwide collection of district competitions for high school students, in October.

A few weeks later, in mid-December, the students were on the phone with Congressman Kweisi Mfume, in wide-eyed disbelief as he congratulated them on winning the challenge for District 7.

The boys prepared for the phone call by doing a little research about the U.S. representative. “It was hard to not be overwhelmed talking to Congressman Mfume,” Yang said. “He’s so accomplished. It was quite an honor.”

Ned Emala ’13, Raghavan’s advisor, joined them on the call. “The boys did a wonderful job. It was a thrill to hear how impactful their application will be,” he said. “The congressman was extremely complimentary, saying that he hopes to see this as the beginning of a long career and a list of accomplishments for them.”

Yang’s advisor, Ariel Dechosa, added, “It’s exciting to see their hard work being recognized.”

Winning teams will visit the Capitol in April of 2025 to meet their congressperson, and winning submissions will be put on display for one year in the Congressional Gallery. “I’m most excited to meet the congressman,” said Yang. Both students look forward to connecting with winners from other districts and hope to pick up some inspiration from their submissions. “I love to see what other people are building,” added Raghavan.

They both plan to incorporate some aspect of computer science into their future studies.

Congratulations, Vivek and Peter!

Watch a video about their process below.

Read an article about their accomplishment in The Skanner