The winners of scholarships to Apple’s worldwide developers conference got a special bonus: the opportunity to meet CEO Tim Cook.
These students used their coding skills to demonstrate that they belong at this year’s WWDC. In return they receive free admission, free lodging, and help with travel expenses if needed.
Cook tweeted a short video introducing some of the scholarship winners, and giving them the chance to talk a bit about their coding projects.
Nothing inspires us more than fresh ideas. Meet a few of the 350+ talented #WWDC18 student scholarship winners! pic.twitter.com/XHRQdgCugE
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) June 4, 2018
Winning a WWDC Scholarship
Attending Apple’s developer conference costs a whopping $1,599 but a fortunate few received a WWDC scholarship by building a creative Swift playground. Apple began taking submissions in February, and 350 winners were announced in April.
Swift is a programming language for iOS software. Swift Playgrounds is a graphical tool designed to teach coding to kids. With it, students create “playgrounds” by piecing together lines of code. Each change they make is immediately reflected in the playground. It teaches all the basics of coding, like loops, variables, and parameters.
It’s not too soon to start thinking about WWDC 2019. Anyone who’s interested in winning a scholarship to next year’s conference can begin planning now.
Entrants must be 13 years of age or older, and enrolled part- or full-time in an accredited course of study. Or they can be a member of a STEM organization that promotes learning outside of the classroom.
