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Rock Canyon senior wins Congressional App Challenge

Rock Canyon senior and winner of the Congressional App Challenge, Sidd Aradhya created an app, CatchChat, to better detect online predators.

 

Sidd Aradhya, a senior at Rock Canyon High School, was announced the winner of the Congressional App Challenge (CAC) by former House Representative Greg Lopez in mid-December. Sidd’s app, CatchChat, was designed to be used by law enforcement to help catch online predators using AI technology.

Sidd discussed what inspired him to enter the CAC: a fake Instagram account for a class project. The account gained attention, and soon messages and unsolicited photos were flowing in, most of them, he claimed, were horrific and disturbing.

“That experience was the main reason CatchChat was built—seeing those messages first-hand,” explained Sidd. “Even asking some of my female friends, I realized these messages are just an accepted part of having social media. I’ve always been really disturbed by these types of people, and seeing it become commonplace doesn’t sit right with me.”

Sidd’s CatchChat uses AI technology to assist detectives in evaluating threats, and creating quick, age-specific language and slang to respond to predators. The ultimate goal is to make it easier to detect and police online criminals so officers can spend their time on other crimes.

“Many detectives and investigators pretend to be children in order to catch predators online,” stated Sidd. “They are generally known as ‘chatters,’ but there are only so many officers who can face an ever-growing amount of online offenders.”

Sidd added that his next goal is to completely automate the process of detection. “I hope to keep automating the process until officers don’t have to serve as individual chatters.”

The Congressional App Challenge is a national contest that began in 2015 to incentivize interest in STEM, coding and computer science for middle and high school students. The 2024 competition set records: 382 members of Congress hosted competitions and more than 12,000 students across the country participated submitting almost 4,000 apps. Sidd was one of several applicants to win in Colorado.

Run district by district, the CAC can be entered individually or in groups. Although Sidd entered as an individual, he is working with law enforcement in Douglas County to put his software to use. Because it is currently being used by detectives, the CatchChat app is not available to the public.

In a press release from Representative Lopez, law enforcement officials commented on how promising Sidd’s software is for their work. CatchChat aims to weed out the real criminals and dangers on the internet, something that law enforcement claimed would take more time than could be imagined without such technology.

For more information on CAC, visit congressionalappchallenge.us.

 

By Marly Holsman; photos courtesy of Sidd Aradhya

CPC

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