Leighla-Marie “Leigh” Dantes is an American software engineer best known for winning the 2021 Congressional App Challenge with mental and physical health app “Olive”. Born in Brooklyn, NY in 2006, Dantes took a liking to computer science when she was just 10 years old in public school using Scratch by MIT. She would go on to create small projects and enjoy robotics, until she moved to Connecticut in May 2021 at the end of her freshman year in high school. In October 2021, her and a classmate competed in and won the Congressional App Challenge for Connecticut’s third district with a customizable mental and physical health app “Olive”. The app was made entirely with MIT App Inventor and is a prototype for a project that will soon be released. Following the Challenge, she was invited by Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro to intern at her office and began her internship in September 2023. Dantes began attending Howard University as a computer science major and biology minor in August 2024 and became a CodePath Android App Developer in January 2025. After her freshman year of college, Dantes began her internship at Carillon Technologies, an aerospace company that specializes in phased array antennas. She led the company’s software engineering department and became both Python and Java certified as an engineer. Dantes is set to be an intern for Eli Lilly and Co. in the summer of 2026. She is currently creating her own projects with Android Studio, while also vigorously pursuing her studies.