Rutherford Announces 2024 Congressional App Challenge Winner

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On Thursday, U.S. Congressman John H. Rutherford (FL-05) announced the winner of Florida’s Fifth Congressional District’s 2024 Congressional App Challenge. Eesh Majithia, a current senior at The Bolles School in Jacksonville, earned first place for his app, “Notecandy,” which provides a variety of notetaking services to users with various learning styles. 

Notecandy was inspired by Neil Fleming’s visual, auditory, reading and writing, and kinesthetic (VARK) model of learning preferences, which was introduced to Eesh by his health and wellness teacher. Notecandy was designed to accommodate each of these styles of learning for students as they take notes in class. Eesh was selected as the winner by a panel of IT specialists from the Northeast Florida community.

“On behalf of Florida’s Fifth Congressional District, I am proud to host the annual Congressional App Challenge and encourage our students to pursue a future in STEM,” said Rutherford. “With his app, Eesh shows an impressive ability to combine creativity with the mechanics needed to create applications aimed at supporting others. I wish him well as he continues to exercise his talent and strive for excellence."

The app will be featured on the Congressional App Challenge website and is eligible to be displayed in the U.S. Capitol, alongside other national winners. 

The Congressional App Challenge is a nationwide competition designed to encourage student participation, providing an opportunity to develop valuable technical skills in computer science and coding regardless of prior experience. Student participants compete against their peers to create an application or “app” for mobile, tablet, or computer devices. The 2025 Congressional App Challenge opens for student submissions on May 1, 2025. 

More information about the competition can be found here and here.