Today, Representative Rick Larsen (WA-02) has named Dylan Pham and Henry Pham, middle schoolers at Explorer Middle School in Everett, for winning the 2025 Congressional App Challenge with their entry, “Epidemic Wars: The 2100 Era” which seeks to educate people about vaccines and the immune system to combat vaccine misinformation.
“Every year, talented students in Northwest Washington sharpen their coding skills and get out of their comfort zones by competing in the Congressional App Challenge,” said Larsen. “This year's winners, Dylan Pham and Henry Pham, developed a creative app to fight vaccine misinformation through interactive education about immune health. Congratulations to Dylan and Henry, and all the students who competed."
“We built a strategy game to help people understand vaccines and how the immune system works, and to think more carefully about health claims,” said Dylan Pham. “Making the app also taught us persistence because we hit a lot of bugs at first, but we kept fixing and improving it. We’re really excited and honored to win the Congressional App Challenge.”
“Working on this project helped me be more careful with information,” said Henry. “I learned to double-check facts with reliable sources and not rely only on AI answers.”
The “Epidemic Wars: The 2100 Era” app is eligible to be on display in the U.S. Capitol and on the House of Representatives App Challenge website.
