Press Releases

Fayetteville, AR–January 24, 2024…Congressman Steve Womack (AR-3) today honored Queenie Lin—a 12^th grader from Haas Hall Academy Fayetteville—for winning the 2023 Congressional App Challenge. The annual and nationwide coding competition for middle school and high school students aims to encourage our nation’s youth to pursue Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education and computer science careers.  

Congressman Womack said, “Congratulations to Queenie on this great achievement! Her app, Accelerate, showcases the remarkable creativity and coding talent she has developed in our impressive Arkansas schools. I could not be more proud of all who participated. I’m confident these young bright minds will advance the STEM field, creating a more efficient and innovative America.”

Rebecca Luebker, Haas Hall Academy Headmaster, said, “Queenie Lin has a very inquisitive mind and throughout her time at Haas Hall Academy she has always been looking at ways to solve problems that she notices. Her app to solve our lunch expediting is a wonderful combination of applying her problem solving and desire to help her fellow classmates. We are so proud of Queenie's accomplishments and we know that she will take her desire to help her community when she graduates.”

Martin Schoppmeyer, Haas Hall Academy Superintendent, said, “Queenie is a quintessential scholar. Queenie leads by example. Everything she does is to the highest level imaginable. We are extremely fortunate to have her as part of our academic community.”

Jeff Amerine, Founder and Managing Director of Startup Junkie, said, “The Startup Junkie team has been judging the Congressional App Challenge in the 3rd Congressional District for many years now. Every year we are amazed by the ingenuity and creativity the student teams bring to the competition. This year was no different. We had the exceptionally difficult job of picking a winner from a group of excellent submissions. Queenie created a very useful app that solved a real problem and she did a fantastic job presenting the story. We are excited to see what amazing innovations Queenie creates in the future.”

Queenie’s winning app, Accelerate, streamlines lunch order distribution at her school with two interfaces: one for club members managing orders and another for students placing orders. With this app, students view order details, rate their meal, and receive an essential order number for lunch pickup. Club members can edit item info, set order closure times, and mark orders as complete using either a student's order number or last name for easy access. You can watch a tutorial of the winning app here.

Womack honored Queenie with a certificate and congressional medallion at a ceremony in Fayetteville. Entries were reviewed by a panel of local technology experts and judged on the originality, creativity, and quality of the app design. The judges included Jeff Amerine, Brett Amerine, and Phyl Amerine of Startup Junkie. Accelerate will be featured on a digital display in the U.S. Capitol and on the Congressional App Challenge website.

Additional honorees include:

• 2^nd Place: Veera Unnam, a sophomore at Bentonville West High School – StudentNET
• 3^rd Place: Rohan Singh, a senior at Bentonville High School, and Siddhartha Milkuri, a junior at Bentonville High School – TraceDefender: Privacy Leakage Detector 

This is the 9^th year Womack has hosted the Congressional App Challenge in Arkansas’s Third Congressional District. The Natural State has consistently had every congressional district partake in the competition, making Arkansas one of the top Congressional App Challenge participants per capita from across the United States. The 2024 edition of the competition will open later this year.