May 8, 2025
UPDATE
Local inspiration, global impact: Meet four of this year’s Swift Student Challenge winners
Every year, the Swift Student Challenge invites students from around the world to follow their curiosity and explore their creativity through original app playgrounds built with Apple’s intuitive, easy-to-learn Swift coding language. From a starry sky glimpsed through a telescope in Nuevo León, Mexico, to a pack of cards discovered in a Japanese game shop, the inspirations behind this year’s 350 winning submissions span the globe, representing 38 countries and regions, and incorporating a wide range of tools and technologies.
“We’re always inspired by the talent and perspective young developers bring to the Swift Student Challenge,” said Susan Prescott, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations. “This year’s winners show exceptional skill in transforming meaningful ideas into app playgrounds that are innovative, impactful, and thoughtfully built — and we’re excited to support their journey as they continue building apps that will help shape the future.”
Fifty Distinguished Winners have been invited to attend the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) at Apple Park, where they’ll take part in a specially curated three-day experience. Over the course of the week, the winners will have the opportunity to watch the Keynote live on June 9, learn from Apple experts and engineers, and participate in labs.
Many of this year’s winners took inspiration from their local communities, creating powerful tools that are designed to make an impact on a global scale. Below, Distinguished Winners Taiki Hamamoto, Marina Lee, Luciana Ortiz Nolasco, and Nahom Worku delve into their app playgrounds and the real-world problems they’re aiming to solve, demonstrating the power of coding to drive lasting change.
When Taiki Hamamoto, 22, came across a Hanafuda deck at his local game shop, he was intrigued. He had grown up playing the traditional Japanese card game with family members, and he thought it’d be easy to recruit friends for a nostalgic round or two — but that wasn’t the case.
“I found that very few people in my generation know how to play Hanafuda, despite it being such a staple in Japanese culture,” explains Hamamoto, a recent graduate of the Prefectural University of Kumamoto. “I thought if there was a way to make it easy to play on a smartphone, it might be possible to spread Hanafuda, not only in Japan but also to the world.”
Through his winning app playground, Hanafuda Tactics, novices can get familiar with the game’s rules and the cards themselves. The colorful, ornate 48-card decks, inspired by Japan’s reverence for nature, are divided into 12 suits — one for each month of the year — and each illustrated by a seasonal plant. There are many ways to play, but one of the most popular variations is Koi-Koi, where players try to form special card combinations known as yaku.
While Hamamoto stayed true to the game’s classic floral iconography, he also added a modern touch to the gameplay experience, incorporating video game concepts like hit points (HP) that resonate with younger generations. SwiftUI’s DragGesture helped him implement dynamic, highly responsive effects like cards tilting and glowing during movement, making the gameplay feel natural and engaging. He’s also experimenting with making Hanafuda Tactics playable on Apple Vision Pro.
The idea that a centuries-old game could one day disappear is unthinkable for Hamamoto, who’s gotten so much joy from it. “Hanafuda is unique in that it allows you to experience the scenery and culture of Japan,” he says. “I want users of my app to feel immersed in it, and I want to preserve the game for generations to come.”
With wildfires spreading quickly across much of Los Angeles earlier this year, Marina Lee, 21, got a harrowing phone call. Her grandmother — a resident of the San Gabriel Valley — had received an evacuation alert, and had little time to decide what to do or where to go.
“As someone who grew up in L.A., I’ve always been aware of the wildfire risks and the realities that come with natural disasters,” says Lee, a third-year computer science student at the University of Southern California, who was spending winter break with her parents in Northern California at the time. “But with this phone call, the urgency really hit home. My grandma was panicked, unsure what to pack, or how to stay prepared and informed. That inspired me to create an app for people like her, who might not be as tech-savvy but deserve an accessible, trustworthy resource in times of crisis.”
Through the app playground EvacuMate, users can prepare an emergency checklist of important items to pack for an evacuation. Lee integrated the iPhone camera roll into the app so users can upload copies of important documents, and added the ability to import emergency contacts through their iPhone contacts list. She also included resources on topics like checking air quality levels and assembling a first-aid kit.
As Lee continues to refine EvacuMate, she’s focused on ensuring that the app is accessible to everyone who might want to use it. “I’d like to add support for different languages,” Lee explains. “Thinking back to my grandma, she’s not as comfortable reading English, and I realized a translation feature could really help others in the community who face the same challenge.”
Heading into WWDC, Lee’s looking forward to fostering new connections with fellow developers, like the kinds she’s made hosting hackathons with her organization Citro Tech, or serving as a mentor for USC Women in Engineering. “Coding is so much more than just developing software,” she says. “It’s really the friendships you build, the community you find, and the problem-solving journey that empower you to make a difference.”
Luciana Ortiz Nolasco was thrilled when she was presented with a telescope for her 11th birthday. Every night, she’d peer through her bedroom window to explore the sky over her home state of Nuevo León, Mexico.
But there were two issues she quickly encountered: first, the thick layer of smog that hung over the heavily industrialized city, obscuring the stars and their brilliance, and second, a lack of fellow enthusiasts to geek out with.
“I didn’t find a community till I joined the Astronomical Society of Nuevo León,” shares Ortiz Nolasco, now 15. On the weekends, through the connections she made at the society, she’d travel to the countryside to see the stars more clearly, attending camps and learning from mentors who shared her passion. These experiences sparked her interest in making astronomy even more accessible to others.
Her app playground BreakDownCosmic is a virtual gathering place where users can add upcoming astronomical events around the world to their calendars, earn medals for accomplishing “missions,” and chat with fellow astronomers about what they see.
Ortiz Nolasco found the ideal tool for bringing her idea to life with the Swift programming language. “Swift is very easy to learn, and using Xcode is very intuitive,” she explains. “Most of the time, it would correct me if I had an error. I didn’t have to spend time looking for hours and have it turn out to just be a small error I overlooked.”
After attending WWDC in June, she plans to continue to develop BreakDownCosmic, with the ultimate goal of launching it on the App Store. “I want people to feel like they’re going on a journey through space when they log into my app,” she says. “The universe is full of mysteries we have yet to discover, and infinite possibilities. This journey is not just for some selected people. The universe is where we live. It’s our home, and everybody should be able to get to know it.”
Growing up in Ethiopia and later in Canada, Nahom Worku felt pulled in two career directions: following in his uncle’s footsteps and becoming a pilot, or pursuing an engineering degree like his father. Ultimately, his fear of flying took the former profession off the table, but he still couldn’t decide on an engineering field to specialize in, until COVID-19 hit.
“During the pandemic, I had a lot of time on my hands, so I bought a few books and discovered web design and coding,” says Worku, 21. He found a community in Black Kids Code, a nonprofit that helps kids learn math and coding, and eventually became a mentor himself.
While assisting with a summer program at York University in Toronto, where he’s now a fourth-year student, Worku and his group were tasked with working on a United Nations Sustainable Development Goal that focuses on ensuring global access to quality education. For Worku, the project was eye-opening, as it connected back to his formative years. “Growing up in Ethiopia, I witnessed firsthand how many students lacked quality education,” he explains. “Additionally, many people either don’t have access to the Internet, or have issues with unreliable connections.”
His app playground AccessEd is designed to tackle both of these issues, offering learning resources that are accessible with or without Wi-Fi connectivity. Built using Apple’s machine learning and AI tools, such as Core ML and the Natural Language framework, the app recommends courses based on a student’s background, creating a truly personalized experience.
“Students can take a picture of their notes, and then the machine learning model analyzes the text using Apple’s Natural Language framework to create flash cards,” Worku says. “The app also has a task management system with notifications, as many students globally have a lot of homework and family responsibilities after school, so they often struggle with time management.”
Worku hopes that AccessEd can unlock new possibilities for students around the world. “I hope my app will inspire others to explore how modern technologies like machine learning can be used in innovative ways, especially in education, and how they can make learning more engaging, effective, and enjoyable,” he says.
Apple is proud to champion the next generation of developers, creators, and entrepreneurs through its annual Swift Student Challenge program. Over the past five years, thousands of program participants from all over the world have built successful careers, founded businesses, and created organizations focused on democratizing technology and using it to build a better future. Learn more at developer.apple.com/swift-student-challenge.
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