AIClub students frequently distinguish themselves by winning national and international competitions for their thoughtful and innovative solutions to real world problems. In this blog post, we honor the four AIClub teams that entered the 2021 Congressional App Challenge, and all of whom won recognition! Two of these apps are listed on the US Congressional App Website and will be for 2022.
In the 2021 US Congressional App Challenge, 7,174 students registered, yielding 2,101 full-functioning apps. 340 Members of Congress hosted Challenges in their districts across 50 states, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Mariana Islands, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Washington, D.C. Four AIClub teams entered the challenge in districts in California and Texas.
High Schooler Kuval built DeepFake Detective, an AI powered website that detects Face Swaps, a type of DeepFake where one person's face is swapped in for another. DeepFake Detective won the Grand Prize in Texas' 21st Congressional District (Representative Chip Roy).
Kuval's statement on his win (from the US Congress Website):
I was inspired by the video of the Tom Cruise deepfake. I then did more research and learned that all deepfakes are not harmless and that they can cause major harm. I found that deepfakes are already being used to deceive businesses and that deepfakes are being considered to be a major category of emerging cybercrime. I also learned about AI and experimented with different ways to detect deep fakes. After creating my AI I decided to make a website that anyone around the world can use to detect deep fakes. I chose a website because it is accessible to anyone with any type of device. I hope that my website helps people anywhere detect deep fakes and also learn more about them so that we can spread the message of awareness about this threat and how to combat it as a society.
Middle School Team Ceye (Krish and Mikhil) won an Honorable Mention for their app - Ceye, which helps the blind recognize US currency. Ceye is an IOS app that uses a two level artificial intelligence to correctly identify currency even in the presence of background noise and damage to the bill itself. Ceye was honored by California's 18th Congressional District (Representative Anna Eshoo).
Finally, Team MDS (High Schoolers Meenakshi, Middle Schooler Danika, and High Schooler Shriya) created the app CO2 Sensei, which is already in the Apple App Store. CO2 Sensei helps businesses reopen after COVID-19 and maintain safe levels of ventilation. CO2 Sensei has already won many awards including the Grand Prize at Technovation Girls and National Winner at ProjectCSGirls. In the Congressional App Challenge, CO2 Sensei was invited to demo their app to US Representative Jackie Speier (California's 14th Congressional District).
Congratulations everyone!!