WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congresswoman Chellie Pingree announced Wednesday that students Wil Losereewanich and John Zarate at Baxter Academy for Technology and Science in Portland have won this year's Congressional App Challenge for Maine's 1st District. The team's winning submission — an organization app called Flex — can be used to help track the progress of different tasks.

"I'm very impressed with Wil and John's app — from its concept to the final product. Writing an app like this takes a lot of technical skill, but it's also clear that they put a lot of thought into developing a tool that people would want to use," said Pingree in a news release. "I'm very proud that they are among the winners of the Congressional App Challenge. This competition is a great way for students to engage in STEM education and get them thinking about all the career options opened up by those critical skills."

Zarate is from South Portland and Losereewanich is an exchange student from Bangkok, Thailand. The two said the idea for the app originally came out of Baxter Academy's Flex Fridays, where students are given a day every week to work on a yearlong project of their choosing. Many project teams at the school use "scrum boards" to track the status of collective tasks — To Do, In Process and Done — and who is responsible for each.

Flex was designed to be a digital version of the scrum boards on the walls at school, Zarate and Losereewanich said. Users can create and assign tasks while moving them from To Do to In Process to Done. The two had early help in developing the concept from their classmates, Connor Bell and Joseph Corwin, and support from their programming teacher, Halsted Larsson.

A video of Losereewanich explaining the app is at youtube.com/watch?v=DPoSIqwtFoc.

The Maine Technology Institute convened a panel of judges for the competition. The judges praised the app's simplicity and intuitive user experience, as well its effectiveness in addressing a key need in project management.

Pingree will formally recognize the students at her office and their app will be on display on a monitor at the Capitol.

Their submission is listed with the other winners at congressionalappchallenge.us/2015-winners/.