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Education

Flathead Valley High School Students Win Congressional Coding Award

The group from Kalispell-based program Code Girls United created an app to prevent human trafficking

By Denali Sagner
From left, Makayla Davenport, Isabelle Ashley and Emma Anderson of Code Girls United in Kalispell on Feb. 13, 2023. Hunter D’Antuono | Flathead Beacon

A team of three high school students from Code Girls United, a Kalispell-based after school program that gives girls hands-on experience with coding, technology and business, has been selected as a winner of the 2022 Congressional App Challenge, a nationwide contest that allows middle and high school students from across the country to compete to have their software applications displayed in the U.S. Capitol. Makayla Davenport, Emma Anderson and Isabelle Ashley, the three members that make up the winning team from Kalispell, who call themselves the Tech Trio, coded an app called “Found,” which is designed to help combat human trafficking, specifically in Indigenous communities.

Found includes a number of features that work to educate users on human trafficking, report suspicious activity and prevent teens and young adults from being trafficked online. The Tech Trio coded a map where users can plot locations of missing people; a reporting system that allows users to report suspicious activity directly to the National Human Trafficking Hotline or local emergency responders; a simulation feature that mimics an online scenario where a trafficker tries to lure in the user, helping to educate the user on the ways human trafficking presents itself on the internet; and an educational feature that includes statistics and helpful links. The app can be used anywhere with internet connection and covers all 50 states. 

“Our mentor had the idea originally and she really wanted to see it implemented somewhere,” Anderson said. “We decided to take on the project and we made Found.”

Isabelle Ashley of Code Girls United codes on her laptop in Kalispell on Feb. 13, 2023. Hunter D’Antuono | Flathead Beacon

Disproportionate rates of human trafficking and sexual violence have long been reported in Indigenous communities. Since 2016, the National Crime Information Center has reported 5,712 cases of missing American Indian and Alaska Native women and girls. Many missing persons and murder cases in Indigenous Communities remain unsolved, due in large part to a lack of investigative resources, jurisdictional issues between local, state, federal and tribal justice systems and underreporting. 56% of Indigenous women report experiencing sexual violence during their lifetime, according to the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center, the majority of which is committed by non-Indigenous offenders.

Davenport said that the app “was designed to empower Indigenous women” and “to combat that problem in a way that was available for everybody.”

Both Davenport and Ashley were part of the first cohort of Code Girls United girls, a group that began meeting in the basement of Sykes Diner back in 2016.

“I wanted to code since I was really little. I always wanted to make an app, just thought that was cool,” Davenport said.  “So seven years ago there was an ad in the paper for this new program starting called Code Girls United.”

Davenport responded to the ad, and has been coding with the program ever since. Anderson joined in 2018, shortly after Davenport and Ashley.

Makayla Davenport of Code Girls United codes on her laptop in Kalispell on Feb. 13, 2023. Hunter D’Antuono | Flathead Beacon

Code Girls United “combines real-world coding for young girls in fourth to eighth grade withpractical business skills” and seeks to increase self-confidence in young women, inspiring them to enter technology and computer science fields later in life.

The after school program has trained numerous girls throughout the Flathead Valley, who have won an array of scholarships and statewide competitions. This is the fourth year in a row that a Code Girls United Team has won in the Congressional App Challenge.

More information about Code Girls United can be found at www.codegirlsunited.org and more information about the Congressional App Challenge can be found at www.congressionalappchallenge.us.