For the second year in a row, Buffalo Creek Middle School student Jace Billingsley was a winner of the Congressional District App Challenge.
Congressman Vern Buchanan recognized the 8th grader for developing an app called “ClassTranslate”.
Jace designed the software to help foreign language students translate school lessons in real time.
Users can type, or copy and paste, text which will be translated from their choice of 12 different languages into English, including: Ukrainian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Greek, Turkish, Mongolian or Haitian Creole.
According to a release, the app is unlike other translation apps, because it’s made specifically for classroom environments.
ClassTranslate allows students to download language transcripts, offers multi-language support and provides clarifications in real time to ensure students are typing accurately.
The app will be featured on the Congressional App Challenge official website and it’s eligible to have photos of its interface displayed in the nation’s Capitol.
“The idea for this year’s app came from a need I saw firsthand in my class,” said Jace. “I had Ukrainian classmates that did not speak English, and I wanted to do something to help them communicate more efficiently in a classroom setting.”
To view the ClassTranslate website, click here: https://info.classtranslate.com/.
In 2021, Jace won the Congressional App Challenge for “The Code Blue App,” which assists health care workers with critical information during a patients’ cardiac or respiratory failure, known as a “code blue.”
The Congressional App Challenge was created in 2015 – and is designed to promote innovation and engagement in computer sciences.
You can read Congressman Buchanan's press release here.