[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 3]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 4001-4002]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   HONORING FIVE PLANO EAST HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS, THE AT&T HACKATHON 
                          COMPETITION WINNERS

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. SAM JOHNSON

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, March 19, 2013

  Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate 
five remarkable students from Plano East High School on winning first 
place in the AT&T Hackathon Competition.
   The AT&T Hackathon, held at the AT&T Foundry development center in 
Plano, is a competition to promote innovative technology, the 
entrepreneurial spirit, and growth in computer science education. The 
competition is open to all technical and non-technical computer 
developers and designers across the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Each team 
is given a little more than 24 hours to create a smartphone app, which 
helps solve a problem plaguing the community--in this case, the 
decreasing high school graduation rate.
   Out of all the technology experts in the room, it was the Plano East 
high school team, comprised of Trent Davies, 17; Bilal Ayub, 16; Ahmed 
Khan, 16; Matthew Laux, 17; and Jimmy Khong, 17 that put their computer 
science skills to work and took home the prize. Competing against 150 
plus people, the students won the contest with oculr, an app that takes 
camera phone-snapped pictures of math equations and searches the 
Internet for instructions on how to solve the problem. What a great 
idea. At the kickoff of the competition, the students developed the 
idea in less than five minutes, gave a 60 second lightning pitch to a 
crowd of 150 professional developers, and then created the product the 
very next day. To conclude the competition, the team of sixteen and 
seventeen year old students presented a three-minute demonstration of 
the app prototype to a panel of judges, experts in the technological 
field. I am incredibly impressed with their ability to create and put a 
new idea into action in only a 24-hour period. You are truly some of 
the best and brightest.
   Technology touches our lives now more than ever before. Students 
encounter social media constantly outside the classroom so why not 
incorporate media into the classroom to further engage and prepare 
students for a technology-driven world? These five Plano students 
embody the future of innovation. I commend them for putting their 
creative minds to work for the betterment of their peers and the 
perpetual success of our community.
   Once again, congratulations, students, on your outstanding 
accomplishment. I am proud to see such innovative thinking and active 
problem-solving from the youth in our great

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state of Texas. You all have very bright futures ahead of you. God 
Bless you.

                          ____________________