It was a class assignment that sent North Dallas High School senior Carol Alejandra Barragán Manchola to Capitol Hill.
"The class assignment was everybody had to create an app that they were going to submit for the Congressional App Challenge," North Dallas High School IT Pathway teacher Christopher Barnhill said.
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WATCH HEREBarragán Manchola was dreading it.
"When I was in Colombia, I had classes for coding in school," Manchola said, laughing. "I didn't like it. I hated it with my soul!"
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She was inspired by her family and their love of food and travel to create MealSphere, an app that helps users find authentic restaurants, recipes and supermarkets.
"Because we travel a lot. We like to travel, and then whenever we were in Colombia, we used to go and try every type of food in different regions," Manchola said. "For example, when you try Colombian food you can also try how much heart they put into that food, or when you try Texan food there's so much flavor, so much power they put in the food, that it's like you get to know the person and the culture at the same time."
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Months passed, and both student and teacher forgot Manchola had submitted her app. Then they found out she won!
"Others were just doing it so they could try to win a free trip to D.C. and, like, she actually had a real good thought-out process of why she wanted to do it," Barnhill said.
"Before I saw, like, these hard puzzles that are like 100 pieces, and now I see a complete meal that I can eat already," Manchola said, looking at the coding on her computer screen. "I feel like that's a way of the universe telling me, like, there's other ways for you to show that you can help others."
Manchola's MealSphere app is currently a demo app, but she plans to develop it for others to use.
