Winners of inaugural Presidential Artificial Intelligence Challenge celebrated at White House Tuesday,with standout achievement by Indian-American students. Their project—a chatbot to combat bullying—won National Champion Award in Elementary School Track 2.
Five-member team from Aldie,Virginia,including Aarna Jaiswal,Eshani Khatri,Riva Madda,Samhitha Pinnamareddy,and Sanuli Rathnayake,developed "Friendzone Chatbot Bullying Prevention App." Stood out among thousands of entries.
In Middle School Track 1,students from NorthStar Middle School in Sammamish,Washington,applauded for “Skillup.” Team included Viha Iyer,Arya Pratap,and Shrimayi Shetty. Khandakar Mahin from Upper Darby Senior High in Pennsylvania snagged high school division,Track 1,with "Utilising Computer Vision for Hotel Room Identification in Criminal Investigations." Mahin graduates this week,heads to Harvard in fall.
Other winners: Alcoa Intermediate School in Tennessee took Elementary Track 1 with “Homework Helper.” Team had Ryker Cochran,Emma Connor,Aaron Gallagher,and Ayden Taverna . Shan Vance from Julia Landon College Prep in Jacksonville,Florida,recognized in Middle School Track 2 for “Using AI Models to Detect Urban Blight using Street-view Images.” Alexander Du from North Allegheny High in Sewickley,Pennsylvania,won High School Track 2 for “IRIS: A Low-Cost Spatiotemporal AI Framework for Visually Impaired Navigation in Complex Urban Environments.”
First Lady Melania Trump,who handed out awards,applauded students for creativity and potential. "Wonderful to see such impressive group of innovators at White House. Proud you represent best of America. You are our future," she said at ceremony .
Presidential AI Challenge drew over 20,000 students from all 50 states,D.C.,Puerto Rico,and Department of Defense schools globally. Trump noted enthusiasm,emphasizing competition's goal: inspire young minds to explore AI possibilities…
