SJS News

Rep. David Trone has named Saint James sixth formers Ayomade Adeolu-Akande and Oluchi Muoguilim as the winners of the 2024 Congressional App Challenge in Maryland’s Sixth District for their app, ShareCompass.

The Congressional App Challenge is an official initiative of the U.S. House of Representatives, where Members of Congress host contests in their districts for middle and high school students, encouraging them to learn to code and inspiring them to pursue careers in computer science. 

Ayomade and Oluchi are both in the AP Computer Science class at Saint James. Ayomade says he has been coding since the age of 10, and Oluchi said she has also been involved in coding programs, such as Girls Who Code, since a young age. Ayomade found the opportunity to participate in the Congressional app competition and asked Oluchi to partner with him. 

Ayomade said the purpose of the app they created, ShareCompass, is to, “bridge the gap between volunteers and local organizations by providing an easy way to discover, track, and share service opportunities. Users can browse opportunities tailored to the type of help they want to give, receive real-time updates from nonprofit APIs, and filter for organizations that offer specific types of assistance. Our goal was to create a streamlined platform that makes volunteering more accessible and encourages people to get involved in meaningful ways.”

Ayomade said he worked on the original app idea and the base functionality while Oluchi worked on the User Interface (UI) and Application Programming Interface (API). 

When asked what inspired the creation of ShareCompass, Ayomade said, “The inspiration for creating ShareCompass came from my experiences of trying to donate educational resources to organizations that could make a real impact, only to find that the process wasn’t as straightforward as I expected. I wanted to help, but I struggled to find a platform that easily connected me with the perfect organization: one that shared my goals of supporting education and had an immediate need for resources. The frustration of navigating multiple websites, comparing different causes, and dealing with outdated information made me realize that many people likely experience similar challenges.

This difficulty in connecting with the right organizations creates what economists call ‘nuisance costs,’ which can reduce the likelihood of people contributing or pushing for change. Even those who are eager to help may become discouraged when the process of giving or finding support is overly complicated. I saw this as a barrier that could prevent well-meaning individuals from making a difference, simply because there wasn’t an efficient, centralized platform to connect donors with recipients.

We created ShareCompass to remove these barriers and streamline the process of giving and receiving help. By making it simple and intuitive, we hope to encourage more people to contribute to causes they care about and, ultimately, drive meaningful change in areas like poverty relief, disaster response, and education. Our goal is to ensure that when people feel inspired to make an impact, they have a tool that empowers them to act immediately and effectively.”

Right now, the app is still a prototype, but Ayomade and Oluchi are hoping to find the time to completely build it out.

This year’s Congressional App Challenge set new records, with 382 Members of the House of Representatives hosting competitions with 12,682 students submitting 3,881 original applications.

As winners of the Congressional App Challenge, Ayomade and Oluchi will be recognized at the U.S. Capitol by Congressman Trone on April 8 at the #HouseofCode festival, the new national science fair where the winning teams are invited to demo their apps to Representatives.

Both students will graduate this spring. Oluchi will be attending Emory University to double major in business and computer science. Ayomade is going to Dartmouth to double major in mechanical engineering and economics. Congratulations to Ayomade and Oluchi!