February 26, 2026 - For the second year in a row, the Congressional App Challenge winner for Texas District 21 through Representative Chip Roy’s office, is a team from Hill Country College Preparatory High School with two of the members receiving the honor for a second time.
The team of three seniors, Ty Fonseca, Luke Ringlein and Keshav Singh, created and designed the winning app called “The American Dynamism Tracker” to provide real-time intelligence on America’s path to re-industrialization. The app measures progress of the United States in critical sectors such as defense technology and workforce innovation by scanning RSS news feeds and classifying articles.
“Congressman Roy recognizes the timeliness of this app’s release with the comeback of our national industries,” states a press release announcing the winners.
“We were really surprised to win this year,” says Ringlein. “I thought we would be at a disadvantage, but I think our focus on American issues helped.”
While Singh, who along with Fonseca won the Challenge last year, wasn’t sure the team would win this time around, he knew their marketing and belief in the app was strong.
“I was really happy when we won,” Singh says. “We are very passionate about our app, because we do need to bring manufacturing back to the United States; and we had a clear vision and story behind the app’s existence. That is what speaks to the heart of the app itself.”
Besides a good ‘why,’ the other half of winning comes from the technical side of the project, and that is where the third team member shines. As the lead programmer, Fonseca shared his expertise on the winning entries for both years.
“When I started working on this project,” Fonseca explains, “they were using typescript for web development, and I had never programmed with java or typescript. I had to learn as I went.”
In the end, working together, the three submitted the winning entry with a strong belief in its purpose, providing these statements in the submission video.
“America’s future will be built by those who choose to build,” says Singh; “The American Dynamism Tracker gives every citizen the tools to understand and strengthen the nation’s industrial revival,” says Fonseca; and “The future of freedom is built, not bought,” says Ringlein.
As a winning team, the three have been invited to the annual #HouseOfCode event at the United States Capitol to celebrate their achievement along with all Challenge winners. This year’s event is April 21-22.
The Congressional App Challenge is an initiative of the U.S. House of Representatives. Members of Congress are asked to 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. The Challenge receives more than 83,000 entries from across all 50 states.
Computer science teacher at HCCPHS Rena Keinrath knows how important it is to offer students opportunities like the Challenge. In fact, she assigned the Challenge to her Computer Science 2 class this year with eight students and three apps being entered.
“Mrs. Keinrath is the best computer science teacher of all time,” says Singh. “I generally don’t know what our project would have looked like without her. I am so grateful to her for giving us the opportunity to build our own projects. That is where I have learned the most.”
Fonseca hopes to become a video game developer and plans to study computer science or computer electronics in college; Ringlein plans to study industrial engineering and business with an interest in marketing and outreach; and Singh is interested in artificial intelligence machine learning and data science.
Congratulations!
Photo descriptions
-A team from Hill Country College Preparatory High School won the 2025 Congressional App Challenge for Texas District 21. Pictured from left is Keshav Singh, Ty Fonseca and Luke Ringlein.