When Barragán Manchola was living and attending school in Colombia, she took classes for coding.
"I didn't like it, she told NBC DFW. "I hated it with my soul!"
It was with those skills though that propelled her to national recognition, as she just won the Congressional App Challenge which brought her and other high school students around the nation to Capitol Hill.
Manchola developed an app inspired by her family's love of food and travel. MealSphere helps users find authentic food restaurants, recipes, and supermarkets.
She explained, "Because we travel a lot. We like to travel, and then whenever we were in Colombia, we used to go and try every type of food in different regions.
"For example, when you try Colombian food you can also try how much heart they put into that food, or when you try Texan food there's so much flavor, so much power they put in the food, that it's like you get to know the person and the culture at the same time."
It was as assignment of her class at North Dallas High School, IT Pathway. Manchola and her teacher Christopher Barnhill even forgot she submitted the app to the contest until she won!
"Before I saw, like, these hard puzzles that are like 100 pieces, and now I see a complete meal that I can eat already," Manchola said, looking at the coding on her computer screen. "I feel like that's a way of the universe telling me, like, there's other ways for you to show that you can help others."
MealSphere is currently a demo app, but Manchola plans to develop it for others to use.
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