Code Girls takes programming to next level developing app for Kalispell Police

Dec. 8—Code Girls United is developing an app for the Kalispell Police Department to go digital in managing its fleet of vehicles.

Ten weeks of work by the after-school program were presented and demonstrated on Monday to Kalispell Police Chief Jordan Venezio and a room full of members and their families at the nonprofit's recently remodeled space at Gateway Community Center.

The app, which is being developed by 13 middle and high school girls in an advanced group, will simplify the daily process of recording and tracking vehicle condition, maintenance and use along with any equipment a vehicle contains such as a CPR mask and First Aid kit.

"It tells you instantly, visually, the state of the vehicle, whether it's available in the lot ready for an officer to use, [or] whether it's checked out by an officer," said Code Girls United volunteer instructor Amy Moore Moore.

Both Moore and Marianne Smith, Code Girls United founder and executive director, said the students are learning college-level skills.

"We use modern software and digital tools to do this," said Moore, who is a software engineer. "I use it daily in my job."

Venezio initially approached the Code Girls about developing the app. He said he first learned about the nonprofit while serving as a school resource officer in 2016. When he learned they seek to solve community problems he thought it was a great opportunity to partner up.

KPD has a fleet of about 30 vehicles. Venezio said the department's 13 or 14 patrol vehicles are the most used.

"It's still a little bit of a work in progress, but it is functioning," Moore said during the presentation.

"It's amazing," Venezio said.

"Yeah?" Moore said with a laugh.

"Yeah, thank you to everybody who worked on this," he said.

He said there's a lot that officers track daily and it should save time and money.

"We're protecting tax dollars," Venezio said, noting that purchasing software would cost thousands in maintenance fees.

"The ability for us to have this digitally, and it's so simple, you'll have a huge impact on our officers. And there won't be a day that goes by that our officers don't use your app. So I hope you feel really proud of that. It's great," he said, adding, "I made a few notes, but I'm a little bit astonished," Venezio said.

Administratively, he said it would be great for the KPD patrol captain to see the entire list of vehicles.

"On the way here my patrol captain called me and we're really worried about our fleet right now because of supply issues," he said, noting the national auto worker union strikes. "So all these vehicles we've been having to order they're now pushed back even further.

THE CODE Girls used JavaScript, a programming language; React Native, a mobile app framework; and Firebase, to connect to a database and store data, Moore said. She also explained what software was used to make the app viewable by users.

"You need a way to view the app once you've once you've coded it ... so we use Expo Go, which is a compiler that translates the language and actually displays the information on the screen where you can interact with it," she continued explaining.

With the project team of 13, she said the group needed a way to share and save their progress and stored it on GitHub, a cloud-based service.

"So there was a lot of pushing and pulling of code down from the cloud onto all of our laptops right here each day when we worked on the app. We definitely had some challenges," she said.

The app can be used on both Apple and Android devices.

Moore and Code Girl members Isabelle Ashley and Makayla Davenport said the next step will be working on security. The end goal is to have an app that can be used by other police departments and first responder agencies in the valley.

Ashley is a high school senior looking to go into computer science and Davenport is a high school junior. Both have come a long way since developing their first app as fifth- and fourth-graders, which was a spelling app for elementary students, which they used block coding and MIT App Inventor to program. Both home-schooled teens stayed on with Code Girls, which is open to fourth- through eighth-graders, to continue learning and over the summer, stepped into leadership roles as interns.

Davenport and Ashley were both part of a team that developed an app to combat human trafficking, which earned them the Spirit of Montana Award in 2022.

"It's just an amazing program," Davenport said. "It's taught me so much. It's really shaped my life until now I can be confident as a woman going into STEM [science, technology, engineering and math] and just really excited to go into this computer science field."

The program also serves roughly 500 members in Flathead County and other counties around the state, according to Smith. The free after-school program also teaches business skills as students pitch their apps and present business plans to competition judges.

"We're trying to get more women in these fields and our way of doing it is not to hit them when they're first in their high school years where we're trying to hit them when they're young, get them interested, which is solving problems they care about, which is why we do these community problems," Smith said.

"They want to save the world," Smith said. "So we help them connect with the problems that they see."

For more information visit https://codegirlsunited.org.

Reporter Hilary Matheson may be reached at 758-4431 or hmatheson@dailyinterlake.com.