Apple’s Swift Student Challenge has paved the way for thousands of students globally to experiment and showcase their creativity by building real-world skills. Using Swift, the same programming language used by professionals, students get the opportunity to join a community of developers to create apps.
The highly anticipated challenge will return in February 2025 for three weeks, and 350 Swift Student Challenge winners will be recognized based on their submissions. Out of the 350 winners, 50 Distinguished Winners will be invited to Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino next summer.
For aspiring students, check out the following tips from Swift Student Challenge 2024 winners from Singapore to be inspired.
3 Tips from SSC 2024 Winner: Kai Quan Tay
16 year old Kai created ‘Seymour’, an app playground that restores the sense of depth for visually-impaired people.
- Put your focus on what you want the app to achieve, and not just its features.
- With submissions being judged in under 3 minutes, work smart to create something that would capture the judges’ attention quickly.
- Adopt an experimental mindset, and do not be burdened by having to make it look good.
3 Tips from SSC 2024 Winner: Xuan Han Tan
15 year old Xuan Han planned, coded and tested his winning app playground ‘Lightspeed’ in a mere ten days to help users maximize tasks efficiently.
- Plan and start early, so that you will have more time to finesse the app for submission.
- Start from designing the UX and approach problems from the users’ perspective to identify what users need.
- Once the features and UI have been set, plan out the different models before actually coding.
Find out more about how to prepare for the challenge, and sign up here to be notified when applications open.
