Swift Student Challengeに向けて準備しましょう

Hello, hello, I'm your host Jerrica to all the students, innovators, coders, educators, teachers out there from all over the world.

Welcome. I'm absolutely thrilled to have you joining for this very special Meet with Apple session. All about the Swift Student Challenge.

Get pumped! Get excited for a jam packed session that we have for you today.

We're just about to get started, so grab your favorite beverage and snack and get settled in because trust me, you're not going to want to miss a second of what we have in store for you today. Like I said before, I'm your host, Jerrica. I'm on the Apple Education team, and I work on creating resources and inspiring experiences for student developers worldwide.

And we have an awesome session for you today to get your gears turning on what you might want to build for your submission.

So let's get right into it. Let's get ready for the 2026 Swift Student Challenge.

Now. The assistant challenge is Apple's worldwide challenge for the next generation of developers, creators, and entrepreneurs.

It's free to participate and mark your calendars. Submissions are open from February 6th to the 28th.

Now, this is your chance to showcase your creativity and imagination by developing a thoughtful app using Xcode or Swift Playground.

It can be any topic of your choosing, really. Anything that you can imagine, and every single one of you has a story to tell, or an idea for an experience or a game that could lead to an app.

So go for it and you'll gain skills just by experimenting, iterating, and creating something for the challenge. And we can't wait to see what you dream up! The Swift Student Challenge is open to students from all over the world. You can find all the info about eligibility and sending in your submission on the Swift Student Challenge website.

Now we have quite the agenda for you today, and we're kicking it off with two folks from Apple to talk about making great apps, focusing on app design.

And next I'll chat with two previous Swift Student Challenge winners who are going to share their coding journey, their winning Swift Student Challenge app, and they have incredible stories, and I think they're going to give you some great tips too. And at the end, we'll have a special guest, but you're going to have to stay tuned to find out who it is. Let's dive right in and talk about app design.

So we know that creating an app is much more than writing clean code. It's about building an amazing user interface, and to do that you need to think about design. So now let's talk about what makes a great app. Not just how it looks, but how it feels, how it guides people, and how it communicates purpose.

To talk about design, I want to welcome my two guests, Ty and Lucas.

Ty is the Product Manager for Liquid Glass and Lucas is an instructional designer here at Apple.

Welcome Jerrica. Thanks for having us. Ty. Hey, Lucas. Have a seat. Thank you.

So it's so great to have you and I have some questions prepared now. Ty, I want to start with you. I'm curious, how does Apple approach making great apps? Very similar to how we approach making great hardware or software experiences. We're really guided by this quote that I think encapsulates it well from Steve, which was design isn't just how something looks, but it's also how something works.

And so that guides us the way that something is going to solve a user's problems and provide a solution that defines everything, right from the engineering time we give to them through to the way that we tell the story at the end.

Everything is guided by it. And so we take a lot of time spending thinking about design. Yeah. That's incredible. But and I imagine a lot of folks who are listening, you know, they don't have access to the world class design teams that we do. So how do you think of students being able to apply design thinking to their own work? It's a great question. You know, many of our best apps are produced by single developers who are acting as both the builder and also the designer, and so we're very aware of that when we're building our own experiences, apps or software updates. So we spend a lot of time thinking internally, not just about great APIs, to make that easy to build, but also how we're going to communicate all the lessons that we learned throughout the design process to developers so that they can get a little bit of a head start when they get started. And to do that, we have this great document that we call the Human Interface Guidelines, or as we affectionately call it, the HIG. Oh, incredible. So give us a high level overview of what you can expect to find in the HIG. I think of it as our best expression of what makes a great app feel at home on Apple's platforms.

Its content extends all the way from the philosophy of design for Apple apps, from things like designing for clarity or putting users content at the forefront all the way through to very tactical suggestions on things like app layout, spacing, typography, you name it.

So it sounds like it's really comprehensive and it's designed for anyone to use, right? Not just designers. Absolutely. We understand that not all developers have a ton of design experience, so we want to write it in a way that it's really easy to understand. And for students who are thinking about their submissions, we really recommend go back to it over and over again. As you're thinking about the submission, you come up with your core idea. Spend some time thinking about the design for the solution of it. Build a basic version and test it out, but then go back to The Hague over and over. And that's going to help you really refine it and accomplish a level of polish that really makes submissions shine. Yeah, that's great advice. Thank you for that. Resource for students. But even just developers in general to keep upleveling their design.

Now I want to talk about Liquid Glass. I've seen incredible videos like this one.

I love it on my iPhone. I think it looks great and it's all over the new hig.

So for those who haven't heard of Liquid Glass, what is it and how can they use it? Yeah, back in 1984, with the introduction of the first Macintosh, there was this idea of something called a graphical user interface, which is this idea of using metaphors to help users understand how to use our products.

And we rely on a lot of metaphors in our software. And one of those is taking real world materials and recreating them in software.

So Liquid Glass is an example of that. It's a new dynamic material that we introduced last year that brings a new level of expressiveness and also depth to all of your apps and experiences, and it also harmonizes the user experience across our platforms and the apps as well. It is a metaphor because it merges the optical qualities of glass with the fluidity of a liquid.

So the optical quality is like reflection and refraction help place more emphasis on users content and have navigation recede.

And then the fluidity and the way that it morphs as you move through different apps, that helps users maintain context of where they are in the app flow.

It's stunning. And here it is in action.

When I use it, I love that it responds so dynamically to touch. It's gorgeous.

Gorgeous, and also very functional. Right. The tactile, organic feedback almost feels like you're pressing into water, and that's really fun to play with. And if you haven't, I encourage you to try. Swipe on a bunch of controls and see how they fluidly morph.

But that also helps separate the controls from the content behind it and the animations. Again, the guide users as they move through the app.

Because I can imagine there's so much thought and care that went into implementation and design.

I imagine it has to be used really thoughtfully.

Yes, absolutely. And I think we actually we mentioned that all over The Hague. Right. Is be very conscious of how you're applying Liquid Glass. It's a very exciting and cool and fun material.

But if you apply it to everything, then it can become distracting. And so our guidance is to use it for things like navigation controls, toolbars, and to leave the main content layer alone so that the focus can be on that content layer instead. I, I bet that the team working on Liquid Glass had a lot of fun iterating and figuring out what the best use cases for that application was.

And speaking of that iteration and refining, this might be a good time to broaden the scope to kind of the larger app development process as a whole.

So to you Lucas, you work on the Develop in Swift tutorials and here they are. They're a great resource to help people get started with app development. So tell us about the app design tutorial and the process of taking that idea from an idea into a full app.

Absolutely. I think many of us can relate having a great idea and then wanting to jump straight into Xcode and start coding, but that's like trying to make a movie without a script. You might have great scenes, but the story as a whole might not fit together properly. So I think that's a good way of understanding the importance of design phase and the app development process.

So design should inform what you build, and the app design tutorial is a great resource for that. So it takes you through the process of defining what you're actually building and how people will experience your app.

Yeah. That's wonderful. Let's take it back to the basics. I know there's a great diagram in that tutorial that outlines these steps in the app design process. Let's have a look at it.

Oh yes. Yes. So it shows the four key phases of the design phase. So discover, prototype validate and iterate. It's a loop you'll repeat again and again. You start with a discover step. It's where it's all about falling in love with problem solving and not the specific solution.

So this step involves talking to your potential users. For example, if you're building an app for creating music, you go talk to musicians and these conversations will inform the design design decisions you do from the very beginning. Yeah, I love that line. It's about falling in love with the problem solving and not the solution. That's wonderful. So next in the process I see it's prototyping.

Right? And for that you can use paper and pencil. You can use Keynote or whatever you're more comfortable with. The simpler the better.

The goal is to create sketches that are easy to change. So if you spend 10s drawing it on a napkin, you're much more willing to throw it away and start something better. This way, you don't spend hours coding an interface that might not work. And yeah, the point is to explore all your ideas on paper before you start building.

That is great because I think that's the hardest part. It's when you have to redo your work.

And so that leads to the next topic validating.

Yes, you have to validate your changes. And I don't mean debugging your code. You need to watch people using your prototype and gather feedback.

They might struggle or hesitate at certain points, and your job is to collect these moments as insights.

They will show where you can make the design more intuitive or better. And by validating your prototype, you're able to test your design decisions, your app's purpose, and the overall experience people have with it.

And then once you have all that information, you iterate. You repeat the cycle. You discover issues, you prototype their solutions, and then you validate them and iterate and refine your design.

I'll quickly jump in there and say, that sort of iterative process is so essential, and we see it even within Apple as well.

We often prototype different experiences and then have others across the company try it, and you so quickly learn what does and doesn't work.

I remember when we first started working on Liquid Glass, for example, we shared it with a bunch of teams and got so much feedback, and that feedback was so vital to help us tweak the different parameters to get the right balance for it.

And so that was a, you know, a massive project. I think all developers, no matter what type of idea they're working on, should be going through that process. So don't be afraid of feedback.

It's really important. It's a gift.

Yeah, that's a great piece of advice.

And it seems like you can think of design as the solution to the problems that you're finding during validation.

Yeah, it's definitely a big part of it. So you validate your prototype, you find friction, you redesign, validate again.

And with every iteration, you get a little closer to the best experience for the user.

Well, thank you for that overview. There's so many great little nuggets in there.

Now time has flown by.

Here's to the last question to wrap up our conversation. I want to have some real talk. So for the folks who are watching this, who want to send in a submission to the Swift Student Challenge February 6th to the 28th, what's one thing that they should focus on? You first. Hi. Oh, I think a good one is probably restraint.

You know, another mantra that we live by at Apple is that there's a thousand no's for every. Yes. So I definitely would suggest picking one hero feature that makes your app special and then polish it. Right. Go use the Hague. Use standard components and frameworks so you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Just get it to a high degree of polish and that will really come through in the submission.

Yeah, I think that's great because it can be overwhelming sometimes when you just start and there's so much available. So do one thing. Well. Yeah. Lucas I'd say it's the narrative. Your app should tell a clear story and have a well defined purpose. So your ability to explain your app as a simple story. Who's it for? What problem it solves and why it matters will definitely show up in your design.

So it's about solving a problem or completing a task that you really care about.

That's great. We talked so much about the iteration process. So emphasizing the iteration process, using the standard components wisely and just keeping the user at the focus of it all. This is great advice. Well Lucas and Ty, thank you so much. Thank you for having us. Jerrica. Thank you. Yeah.

Well, thank you to our guests.

That was so good. I hope you enjoyed that overview of app design principles that you can use to level up the design of your Swift Student Challenge. And now I'm excited to introduce my next guest to the stage to incredible student developers and previous Swift Student Challenge winners.

The first is Adrit Rao. He's currently a freshman in university, and his Swift Student Challenge winning app called EyeSee simulates the visual experience of people with various eye conditions.

And we have Marina Lee, a senior in university, and her winning Swift Student Challenge app called EvacuMate, helps people stay safe and organized during a wildfire crisis.

Let’s welcome Adrit and Marina.

Hello. Welcome.

Welcome! I am so excited to have you to thank you so much for coming and to get started with you two.

I want to take it back to the beginning and hear about the beginning of your coding journey. So how did it all begin? Marina.

Oh well, my journey started all the way back in middle school, actually. I joined a mentorship program that paired young girls with female mentors in the tech industry.

And throughout the program, my mentor taught me how to code and guided me on a simple project.

Oh. And yeah. So throughout the program, my mentor taught me how to code and guided me on a simple project, and we all got to present our work at the end. And what really stuck with me was seeing everyone else's projects. You know, so many of them were focused on solving real world problems or helping communities that they cared about, and they were all so creative. And for me, I'm really interested in art and design as well. So that combination of creativity and impact really clicked for me.

And before the mentoring program, I was honestly pretty intimidated by the lack of female representation I saw in tech at that time. But I feel like the mentorship program really gave me that supportive, all female environment that made me feel like I belonged. And that moment really gave me the confidence to keep learning to code. And I first learned Swift through a summer program called Kode With Klossy, which was also an all female space. And I did their iOS development course and really enjoyed it since learning Swift felt approachable as a beginner. Yeah. That's incredible. I love how much female mentorship has shaped your journey, especially because you are, you know, representing now. Exactly. Amazing.

Adrit. What about you? Sure. So I was first introduced to programing in elementary school. Block programing. And I think I immediately felt like a huge spark of curiosity. I could just, you know, put blocks together and my ideas could come to life. So that whole concept from the very beginning was exciting to me. My Swift journey started in 2020, so during the quarantine period of the pandemic, I had a lot of free time. I was a middle schooler. Yeah, I sure do. And you know, I've always been fascinated by the iPhone from a very young age. I love the App Store and how it kind of creates this bridge between developers in the world. And so I was like, I want to be part of this. So during the quarantine period, I self-taught myself Swift using YouTube tutorials, and I immediately rediscovered that feeling of like writing code and seeing it come to life and knowing that I could eventually build apps that could actually reach people was incredibly powerful, and it just pushed me to keep learning and creating. I still remember the excitement of like, building a simple calculator app and just running it on my iPhone. It was just like excitement, like I've never felt before. And I think app development also exercises both sides of who I am. I have a very technical side that likes coding and problem solving, and then a creative side that likes design and visuals. So app development really satisfied both sides for me.

And then another thing which kind of changed when I started developing apps was my view of problems in my community. I felt like I naturally started to look at problems in a different way and started thinking like, how can I write software that solves these problems through apps? Wow! That's incredible. You are a total self-taught wonder. I love that you learned on YouTube. That's incredible. So how did you keep learning after that? Yeah. It's funny. So just three weeks into this self-learning Swift journey, Apple had announced the 2020 Swift Student Challenge. And you know, I was pretty new to Swift, but I saw it as an amazing opportunity for me to, like, ramp up and turn what I had learned into something meaningful. So that year I created a Swift Playground that told my story, how I got into Swift and my passion for coding. To my excitement, I ended up being the youngest winner that year and got to meet Tim Cook, which was super inspiring, exciting, motivating and I had the chance to talk to him about a new idea I had called ShopQuik, which would be an app that would help the elderly people in my community go to grocery stores when the wait times were less, especially during the pandemic. He really gave me a lot of encouragement and ShopQuik later launched on the App Store. Wow. That's amazing. And we even have a photo of you at Apple Park and you look so young! Yes.

That was actually my first time at Apple Park during WWDC 2022.

And I think especially after the pandemic, being able to connect with the student developer community in person was incredibly inspiring for me.

Wow. I'm just struck by how you had a vision, a really clear vision for what you wanted to do at such a young age. It's incredible. So what did you work on after that? Yeah, so app development quickly became a passion. And so for the past five years, my work has been focused on applying apps to healthcare. I think the first medical AI app I built was really impactful in my journey. It was called AutoABI, and it was an AI app that used Coreml to classify sounds from patients arteries, people who had something called peripheral artery disease in their legs. And I think the most transformative experience of building that app was going into the Veterans Affairs Hospital and actually seeing doctors use it in a clinical environment. It really put everything into perspective for me. Wow. That's incredible. Tell me a little more about that. Yeah. So, you know, up until that point, I'd been building this app AutoABI behind the scenes on a computer.

But at the hospital, I really could see how it fit into clinical workflows and how it actually affected doctors at the point of care. I still remember those days in the hospital. I was able to talk to patients and watch doctors place this app I built on patients arteries and actually get a result back within seconds. And so I think it really solidified my interest in building technology for healthcare. The whole process, from developing the app to deploying it took three years, but it really set me up in this space because it taught me everything from working with clinicians to building accurate AI models and putting it all into what I love the most, which is mobile apps.

Lucas and Ty talked about this iterative process of app development, and I think it's so crucial.

Learning by doing has always kept me very motivated, especially when I see impact in the real world. Yeah, I bet. That moment when you got to see it bedside must have been so impactful. After all those hours behind a screen, you really found your passion. Yes. Well, what about you, Marina? How did you keep learning? Yeah, for me, throughout high school, I took computer science classes to continue learning to code. And I also started getting really involved in weekend long hackathons, where teams usually work to build a project from scratch. And I think there's just such a great way to learn a lot of programing languages quickly.

I attended an AI research program back in high school, where I met a lot of students from all across the US. And I remember that one day we were kind of talking about what classes we were taking in school, and I was kind of shocked learning that a lot of their schools didn't actually offer any computer science courses.

And for me, I went to high school in the San Francisco Bay area. So I feel like I've always been surrounded by tech and education. So that really inspired me to organize my own hackathon called Citro Hacks. And I kind of assembled a team and we invited 15 guest speakers, and they hosted technical and career workshops. And this was also during Covid. So it was a virtual hackathon, but I thought it was awesome because it took away those financial and geographic barriers that people might face. So our first hackathon actually ended up getting over 800 participants from 50 countries. So. Wow. Yeah. Wow. That's a huge success. Congratulations. Thank you. Yeah. It was such a rewarding feeling for me. Just to see hundreds of students from all over the world really come together with that one passion of coding. Wow. I bet that was. Man, what an initiative to have during the pandemic as well. So what do you do with computer science now? Well, I'm currently on my fourth year studying computer science at the University of Southern California and actually planned to return for one more year in their accelerated master's program.

And now at USC, I help with mentoring and volunteering at other hackathons. I'm also a board member for USC's Women in Engineering Club, where I lead the mentorship program, and I also became a teaching assistant for the iOS development course at USC.

So really, all of my involvements are related to mentorship, and it really feels like a full circle moment giving back and teaching others.

Wow. That's Incredible. Full circle indeed. I can see how you stepped into your own mentorship roles in your life. That's amazing.

You two are so inspiring.

I'm like, fangirling over here. Over how cool you are.

And it just strikes me how your drive and your passion to learn new skills and to seek out new experiences, whether in the clinical setting or in the classroom.

It's just really inspiring. Yeah. Thank you for sharing your stories. Thank you.

So I can't wait to hear about your winning Swift Student Challenge apps. So I want to get to that. But before that, I want to shake it up a little with some lightning round questions. So those are like first reaction answers only. Are you ready? Let's do it. Yes. Okay, let's do it. Let's do it. Okay. First one currently, what is your favorite app? Adrit I would say Figma. I love using it to design my apps for me. Pinterest I really like using it for creating vision boards.

I use Pinterest two for my vision boards. I already made my 2026. Have you made yours yet? Yes, I actually have. I added a lot of inspo and pictures just to like really manifest all my new year goals like finding a job for example, or eating more healthier. So really everything.

That's amazing. I'm manifesting that for you, Marina. That's awesome. Okay.

Next question. Dark mode or light mode? Dark mode.

Yeah. Same here. Yeah. Same. Same. There's no right answers. But that was right.

Okay. Next question. What's your favorite thing about Xcode or SwiftUI? Rina I'd say Live Preview.

I like that it updates in real time as you code, so you can see what the app looks like without pressing run every single time.

And I really like Swiftui's cross-platform support across iPhone, iPad, and Mac. You know, it's really easy to share views and iterate really quickly with that. Good ones. Okay, last lightning round question.

This one's my favorite. What's your favorite programing snack when you have the munchies? Marina. Ooh, I would say this is more of a beverage, but I love sipping on boba milk tea while I work. Yes, it really gives me that caffeine boost I need. Yes, I'm the same way. Okay, what is your go to boba order? Ooh, I would say either oolong or jasmine milk tea. Yes. A woman of good taste.

I would say.

It's simple, but grapes. That's my go to. That's incredible. You're making us look bad with how healthy that choice is.

But okay. What's like the boba order equivalent of grapes? Like red grapes or green grapes? If I had to choose. I like all grapes. But if I had to choose, I would say red. But he likes all grapes. I don't discriminate. That's so good. Well, I'm craving this very unique combination of boba tea and grapes now, so thank you. Thank you.

Thank you for humoring me with that. Now I want to hear about your winning Swift Student Challenge app. So let's start with you.

Here's an image of EyeSee.

And I'm curious, how did you get the idea for the app and what does it do? Yeah. So EyeSee is an app that uses on device image processing algorithms, which I developed to emulate different eye conditions. Those are what you saw in the characters represented on the first screen. So I've previously done AI and computer vision research in the field of ophthalmology. So I think EyeSee came from like just my inherent curiosity to understand how the eye conditions I did research on actually affect people in their day to day lives. I think it can be really hard to understand how others see the world, especially with the diversity of Vision conditions.

So the app is aimed to be an exploratory experience where you simply pick up your iPhone and, you know, show it around the world and it'll show you how the world looks through different eye conditions. There's also an educational storyline inside the app, where you kind of step into the lives of different characters, and you get to experience how they would see the world and navigate it with their Vision conditions as well.

And here's a short clip we have of the baseball character that you mentioned, so we can get a feel for how the image changes as the condition progresses.

And this is so creative and illuminating.

Tell me more about this one. Yeah. So this baseball player is actually experiencing a disease called diabetic retinopathy.

These educational storylines are all about understanding how eye conditions shape people's lives. So, you know, the live camera experience is great for seeing your world and how it would feel through an eye condition. But then these stories let you understand how it would affect, like a baseball player, for example. And as you mentioned, you can adjust the intensity of the eye condition in the app. And I think it's really important because it shows how eye conditions vary from person to person, but they can also gradually degrade over time. So that was kind of the goal with that design decision. Incredible. I feel like it's storytelling as well, but it's also in a visceral and empathetic way.

And we had talked earlier about app design, so I imagine you had to design a lot of it around the camera. Exactly. Yeah. I designed the app around the iPhone camera itself. I think the main goal was augmenting live video in a way that felt familiar to users, and so keeping that core experience clean and accessible drove most of my design decisions.

It lets the user focus on the visual differences in each condition and not much about, you know, the complexities of that. I think another component of the design, which was really important to nail down, was actually representing these eye conditions, like diabetic retinopathy or glaucoma as accurately as possible.

So a big component was doing research into these conditions, learning about how people describe day to day life.

And so for visualizing diabetic retinopathy, for example, like we saw, it wasn't just putting black dots on the screen, but to actually represent it in a realistic manner. It was about making these spots irregular, making them move around. And what that represents is actually the fluid and particles inside the person's eye which shift as they look around. And so getting that into the app was really exciting for me.

Wow. So it sounds like you did a lot of research to on each of those conditions to make them accurate. That's amazing. I feel like it's such a perfect representation of how medicine and technology can intersect creatively.

Marina, let's talk about EvacuMate so we can have a look at it here And I know there is a really heartfelt family story behind it. Yeah, my app was inspired by a real life event. I grew up in Los Angeles, where there's always risk of fires, and I didn't truly realize the urgency until the huge wildfire outbreak happened in LA last year in January, and I was in the Bay area at the time with my grandma, who lives in LA, called me, and I remember how she was really panicked. She sounded when she said, she told me she got an evacuation alert and she wasn't sure what to do. And I realized how many other people like her must be facing the same confusion and fear. For example, people who aren't as familiar with tech or maybe English isn't their native language. And that really inspired me to create an app that's accessible and easy to use, especially in times of crisis.

So I built EvacuMate, and it includes things like an interactive checklist of items to pack, a place to upload copies of important documents and contact information for essential orgs like the American Red cross.

I also added a section with references and links pointing to information on how to check air quality levels, packing a first aid kit, and managing anxiety during wildfires.

And we have a sweet photo of you and your grandma.

She looks safe and healthy. Looks like she was okay. Yes. That's us. And yeah, don't worry. She was totally safe during the fire.

I'm so glad. I'm so glad. So on app design. I imagine you designed it around users like your grandma.

Exactly. I had my grandma in mind when I was designing, and I really wanted to make the user experience as straightforward as possible.

I researched accessibility principles and what Ty mentioned earlier. Apple's human interface guidelines.

For example, I added SF Symbols, which are symbols in Apple's icon library, next to some titles and descriptions in the resource library. And I just realized that using universal symbols are so important, so that people who speak different languages can understand what the resource is.

Yeah. As in, for my development process, I started a lot with user research. So many of my friends and family are in the LA area, so I surveyed them to kind of see what resources they thought would be helpful. And after I narrowed some ideas down, I designed how I wanted the visual layout of the app to look like. Wow. I love that you went out and surveyed friends and family, and let's take another look at the visual layout of your app and your app icon.

I love this app icon. It's so cute. Did you make it? Yeah I did. I actually used Figma, which is Edward's favorite app, to digitally illustrate the icon and also design the user interface as well.

And yeah, just designing the layout is always my favorite part of creating an app, because I love to really get creative and artsy with the process.

Wow, I can't believe you made them yourself. That is so cool. Thank you.

It just strikes me how both your winning apps are so beautiful, but they're also really with a deeply empathetic purpose behind them.

Yeah. So just congratulations again. Incredible work. Thank you. Jerrica. And now I want to know what what has it been like for you since winning the Swift Student Challenge? Maybe you first, Marina. Yeah. So for me, winning the Swift Student Challenge truly boosted my confidence as a developer. As if you needed it. No. Yeah, it really did. But in attending WWDC in person this past year was such an amazing experience and I especially loved meeting developers from so many different backgrounds. Yeah. And throughout, like all the hackathons I've been to, I built a lot of friendships with people from all around the world, but really only through a virtual setting. But at WWDC, that in-person experience really brought it all to life, so it was truly a memory I'll never forget.

And this past summer, I interned at a tech company as a software engineer, which gave me that experience of developing software in a professional setting and also working on large scale projects as well. So I'm really gaining more motivation and skills to continue working on not just EvacuMate, but other iOS projects that focus on social impact.

Wow, that's so great! I'm so glad you're gaining experiences and working in professional settings that are helping you develop. That’s amazing. Well, what about you, Adrit? Yeah, so for me, winning the challenge just launched me into app development as a whole. And I think the biggest thing I learned is that age is really not a barrier to making a difference. I mean, with the App Store, really, anyone can publish their apps and have it reach people, which I think is so exciting seeing how large and diverse the student app development community is. It was also very inspiring.

after winning the challenge in 2020, I reached out to work with Doctor Oliver Aalami. He's a professor at Stanford who leads many impactful digital health initiatives, especially in the iOS ecosystem.

I'm very excited because most recently, an AI algorithm that Doctor Alami and I developed over three years gained FDA clearance, which I'm super excited about.

Congrats. Thank you. Yeah. The algorithm basically analyzes CT scans and it kind of searches for aneurysms, which are very dangerous. And the goal is for this algorithm to be running in hospitals all the time in the background and basically flagging patients who could be at risk. And I can't wait to see the impact it makes. Wow, that's so cool. I feel like I'm saying that after everything. That's so cool. That's amazing.

Thank you. And that's also what you study too, right? You're pre-med. In school. I am pre-med, so I'm studying computer science and biomedical engineering at UC Berkeley on the pre-med track. Wow. Wow. Incredible. There I am again. Wow.

Thank you. It just sounds like you've really found your passion in digital health, but. And you've found a team you found collaborators to work with. Yes. Absolutely. I really want to continue being a part of how medical technology evolves and scales. You know, I've had the opportunity of seeing firsthand how AI and apps can improve the patient experience at the point of care. And so long term, I see myself continuing to stay in this space, continuing to build apps which solve medical problems and reach patients at a much larger scale. And I think especially in the settings where healthcare is currently limited, I think apps can make an even greater impact there.

I cannot wait to see what technology, what projects come out next in that space with you. Thank you. And I've heard that you've both published apps to the App Store, but that EvacuMate just got published. Is that right, Marina? Yeah, EvacuMate was published on the App Store, and I really want to continue working on it. And I want to focus more on the user experience when I add more features, and I was thinking of adding like multi-language support and really make the experience more customizable for deaf and hard of hearing users, like relying more on haptic feedback and visual alerts, and also help vision impaired users by adding features like VoiceOver and Dynamic Type too. Yeah, that is great. Just really broadening the range of accessibility features. Yeah, definitely. And beyond EvacuMate, I just really hope to focus more on that accessibility space. I really care about building software that supports users of diverse capabilities.

And aside from that, I want to maybe incorporate some of my other hobbies, like music.

Music has always been a big part of my life, and I grew up playing piano. I've been involved in jazz band and orchestra, and now I'm currently a keyboardist in a pop band at USC. Oh, cool. Yeah, and lately I've also been experimenting with composing and producing music with Logic Pro, so I really just want to get more creative with the apps I'm building. Wow. A woman of many talents and interests. That's so cool. It seems like you're both bored and you have nothing going on.

Oh my God. But seriously, the future is bright and I can't wait to see what new features and projects come out for both of you.

Now time has flown by. It is time for our last question and final question. But before I ask it, I would love to invite a special guest to the stage.

Please welcome Susan Prescott.

Susan is the VP of Worldwide Developer Relations.

A little note she's the one that signed your awards.

Autographs after.

Susan. Great to be here with you and also with everybody watching online. We're really excited to have you joining us today.

Thank you Susan. We're so glad to have you. And we just had a wonderful conversation with the incredible stories of Adria and Marina, how they started coding, all of the really thoughtful decisions behind EyeSee and EvacuMate, and you're just going to hear so much about all of the work that they continue to do. It's pretty incredible, for sure.

And, you know, like Marina, I think for me, it's very moving to hear about the importance of female mentorship in your journey.

That rings very true to me as well. And what I love about it also is that you've gone full circle and are now mentoring others as well. And I think that's beautiful and important. You know, for all of us to be on our own journeys and to help other people along, like what's the path we leave behind to make it easier for others? I mean, they're going to work hard, don't worry, but help them out a little bit. So, you know, of course your app is fantastic as well. But I really loved that part of your story. And I think that EyeSee is what's powerful to me about it is this idea of building empathy for people with the condition. And I know you talk about that as one of your purposes in doing it, but I thought that was really stand out.

And it's amazing because you're kind of at the beginning of the journey of what you, no pun intended, see as the future for the app. So you're both lovely to be here and really inspirational, hopefully to everyone listening and to me as well.

Thank you Susan. Really appreciate that. Wonderful. Well, here's the last question for everyone.

It's for the audience. So for those who want to submit to the Swift Student Challenge, what words of wisdom do you have? What advice do you have from your perspective for them? Why don't. You start? I would tell them to just go for it, even if they're completely new to Swift. I think the challenge itself is a really great learning experience, so just diving into it is going to be amazing and it's going to pay off.

It's totally fine to learn as you go. That's exactly what I did and I continued to do that. So I look as this look at the Swift Student Challenge as an opportunity to learn and continue growing as a developer, I think my advice is to watch past WWDC sessions. They're incredibly inspiring. You'll learn exactly what's at the forefront of technology right now, and when actually getting hands on and building your Playground, I always recommend wearing two hats. So one hat is your technical hat. You're focused on making your code robust and efficient, but then also think of the user. They may not be technical and they may not intuitively understand your app flow, so design it so that the experience explains itself. And I think if you keep that mindset, it's going to help you build something accessible, intentional and easy to engage with.

I love that advice. It just go for it. And the iterative process is so important to making the app wonderful.

Marina.

Yeah, I would say to start small and stay curious. And don't be afraid to make something uniquely you.

know, when I began first began coding for the challenge, I thought I kind of had to build something very complex and technical to stand out. But I realized what truly matters is creating something that reflects your story and motivation.

So they shouldn't really stress out about creating really advanced features if they're a beginner in coding and if they're building something that is truly meaningful to them, the passion will show through. And that's what the Swift Student Challenge is really about. Beautiful. Staying true to yourself, which is exactly what you did with your app too. That's great advice.

Susan. You're next. But before you answer.

Wondering if you can answer for those who are wanting to submit to the Swift Student Challenge but also even wider just student developers worldwide. Yeah, I think I have a few comments I want to share that hopefully gets you guys even more interested and, you know, taking some action to participate.

Start with the fact that at Apple, we strongly believe that apps for everyone should be made by everyone, and that's across all kinds of demographics, and that's really important. Swift Student Challenge is global, and it's a fun and exciting way for students across the world to be able to, you know, engage in, in this process and showcase their creativity, their problem solving skills and coding skills.

And, you know, it's just everybody at Apple loves this time of year. We have to be careful about who we let judge because like all the engineers and all the marketing people want to be on the on point because it's so inspirational and it's inspirational, in part because of the ingenuity and the talent that students year after year really showcase, and especially the deeply personal nature. So you've all had experiences or have an idea that would allow you to create something like a GRid and Marina did that's meaningful to you. And that, I think, is the most important part of having a successful journey in the in the Swift challenge.

I think it's really important to remember you don't have to have experience to engage. And you heard Adrit was this cute little middle school guy, and he's like, well, what am I going to do? My mom's going to make me clean the bathroom if I don't think of something. And so so my mom would do so, you know, you don't need prior experience. You can drive into creating for Apple platforms. This is what we call a Meet with Apple session. There's other ones like this. There's content like a drip mentioned online. Take advantage of that. And we have tutorials like Develop in Swift online on our website. So we encourage you to find some resources that can help you out. But don't be intimidated because you don't need prior experience in order to be able to to do great work for the challenge.

Your own ambition, your own ideas are really the, you know, open up everything for you. So last thing I would say is I believe this very sincerely.

If you complete the process and build your project that has meaning for you and submit, you're already a winner. And I'm not saying that without complete and genuine intention, I think it's very impressive to get to that point. I think you're all capable of doing it, and as I mentioned earlier, it should be a fun and exciting journey. Yes, there are moments probably of questions or frustrations, but it should be fun and exciting and the feeling of accomplishment is here, you know, really extraordinary for the students. So those are some of my thoughts on that. Jerrica. Yeah, that's so great. I love that last piece of advice, because even when you just submit something and create something, you just learn through the process of figuring out, working through your idea. So yeah, there's there's just no limit to what you can create for this. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, thank you for those wise words of advice. Marina and Susan.

Thank you for having us. Thank you for having us. Well, folks, it's unanimous.

You really just got to go for it. And I hope you all watching are inspired to dive into those problems in your community and how you're going to design those experiences and use the resources and be inspired by the stories that we talked about today. So check out this Swift Student Challenge website for all the details of how to send in your submission. And remember, it's free to participate and submissions are open from February 6th to the 28th, so go for it! Well, from all of us here in Cupertino.

Thanks for hanging out with us today, and don’t forget to get creative and get ready to participate in the 2026 Swift Student Challenge.

Thank you. Thank you.