Oklahoma students create app to revolutionize petitions, winning national competition

On cell phones and tablets, there is literally an app for everything. A group of students at Francis Tuttle Vo-tech have come up with an idea for a new app, and there is already excitement about this one, nationally.

“This wasn’t a class project. This was completely of their own initiative,” said Andy Harbert, teacher at Francis Tuttle Vo-tech.

The national contest put on by Congress is called the House of Code. The students at Francis Tuttle had never heard of the competition, so it took a little time for the creative juices to start flowing.

“We were considering it for a couple of months, but it wasn’t until like, three months before the competition deadline was coming up,” said Francis Tuttle student Efren Llanes.

With the deadline coming, that’s when students, Nathan Lam, Aurial Teemoi, Jason Hull, and Efren Llanes, went to work creating an app that they call VoiceIt.

The concept for the VoiceIt app came pretty naturally.

“Walking outside of a supermarket and we saw a lady with a petition clipboard and we were like we may be able to make that a little better,” said Llanes.

“They built the app, they created a video, which was part of the contest, and went to downtown Oklahoma City and won first place,” said Harbert.

The app allows users to create, sign, and share petitions with thousands of subscribers even reaching their congressperson.

“So, we have the title, a little short description, the amount of people that signed it, how many days the petition will be open,” said Llanes. 

Users of the app must be registered voters.

“It was actually kind of ironic that we created this whole petition but at the time none of us were even old enough to vote,” said Llanes.

The next step is a trip to Washington DC to present the app to Congress.

“When we also get a tour of the white house and like he said get a meeting with Stephanie Bice our district five representative,” said Jason Hull, Francis Tuttle student.

The students leave next week to present their app in DC along with the other winners from all over the country.