Today, Congresswoman Debbie Lesko announced the winner of the Congressional App Challenge for middle and high school students in Arizona’s Eighth District. Salil Naik, a 10th grade student at Mountain Ridge High School in Glendale, won this year’s competition for hour.ly, an app to help students create a specific schedule to stay on top of school work.

“Salil’s app uses a machine learning algorithm to help maximize studying time,” said Congresswoman Debbie Lesko (AZ-08). “More impressively, Salil created an app to help his fellow students do well in school. Congratulations to Salil for winning this year’s App Challenge!”

Salil’s inspiration for creating the app: “When studying, I tended to focus more on the classes I liked rather than those I needed to study for. This year, I'm taking harder classes, so I realized that I needed to change my studying habits in order to succeed in the rigorous courses.”

A video of hour.ly may be found here.

Salil’s app was selected from a number of entries from across the district. Students were invited to submit computer programs (or apps) written in any programming language, for any platform. The winner from Arizona’s Eighth Congressional District, chosen by a panel of expert judges, will be featured on CongressionalAppChallenge.us. The winning app will also be eligible to be on display in the U.S. Capitol, honoring the winners from across the country.

More information, including the official rules and entry guidelines, may be found at www.congressionalappchallenge.us.