Apple’s WWDC developer event is a major event in the global tech calendar. With over 1.4 billion devices running Apple’s platforms around the world, it’s a chance for developers to come together and learn about the future of Apple tech and how it will affect their businesses.
It’s not just developers that receive invites into the coveted space that is Apple Park. Each year, Apple runs a WWDC scholarship programme, which gives students from around the world a free ticket to WWDC and a place to stay during the conference, so they get to partake in all the action.
Phil Schiller, senior VP of worldwide marketing at Apple, puts this growth in student developers down to the creation of Swift, Apple’s coding language, as well as the ease of publishing on the App Store. “We’re seeing kids come into it with the most brilliant, creative ideas, ready to start their career in software,” he says.
“And they bring so much enthusiasm and energy. When we do the keynote, there’s about 6,000 people in the audience and you can immediately tell where the student section is because they’re so loud. It’s so nice to see.”
Of the 350 students making the trip to California this year, three of them are from London and Kent. Here’s what you need to know about them.
Spruce Campbell, 14
Spruce Campbell, from London, starting coding at the ripe young age of eight, after being inspired by the video games he was playing and took to designing new levels and concepts. Two years ago, he won the BAFTA Young Game Designer Award two years ago for one of his first apps, a game called CYBERPNK. A follow-up title, CYBER:JUMP, has received over 100,000 downloads on the App Store.
He says coding is like having a secret identity. “It always feels a bit surreal when I have to take a day off school to go to an event I’ve been invited to.”
What he loves about the process though is the feeling he gets when something he’s been slaving away at works. “A lot of coding is solving puzzles and the feeling when the console clears all the errors, and you run it, and everything works is just as strong as what you feel when putting the final piece in a jigsaw puzzle,” he says.
This is the first time Campbell will attend WWDC and he says he’s tried to not read any of the rumours about what will be announced during the keynote.
“I’m just as excited to be able to talk to some of the developers behind the apps I use every day. It’ll also be really nice to catch up with all the friends I’ve made over my coding journey so far.”
Aurther Nadeem, 15
Originally from Pakistan, Aurther Nadeem moved with his family to Kent when he was two years old. Like Campbell, he started coding at a young age and was about nine when he started using Scratch, a free programming language created by MIT.
He has two apps in the App Store already, both focused on maths: Quickk Maths and InComp. Why maths? “The App Store can be accessed in nearly every country in the world and hopefully through my apps people are getting access to a resource which can help them develop a better future for themselves and the people around them.”
At the moment he is balancing his school work around coding and hopes to study computer science at Imperial College in order to become a software developer. Attending WWDC is a dream come true after watching all the keynotes previously on his phone. “Actually being there will be a life-changing experience for me, “ says Nadeem. “I hope to gain more knowledge and skills from the many opportunities that will be available there for all the scholars and hopefully I can implement these skills in my future work.”
His big tech idea to save the world? “I think one of the biggest difficulties at the moment is our struggles to harness renewable energy. I think we need to develop a piece of tech that allows us to fully harness the energy of the sun, similar to the conceptual Dyson sphere.”
George Taylor, 26
George Taylor, from Kent, says he was always interested in how tech works behind the scenes but it was only when he decided to apply for the Apple Developer Academy in Naples that he was able to explore this curiosity fully.
“I saw an article about the academy and that they were open for applications and I applied without thinking anything would come of it,” he says. “It turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve made.”
Collaboration is a big part of the teaching at the academy so the first app Taylor worked on was with his classmates. Called Helium, it is an educational app using gamiefied learning to teach people about the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. “I was mainly involved with the design of things but learned a lot from what the coders were doing. We built the app in about a week. It took a little more refining to push it to the App Store but it was a great feeling to put something out into the world.”
Like most Apple fans, Taylor says Steve Jobs is one of his tech heroes but he also has a lot of respect for Susan Kare, who designed most of the icons for the original Mac. “It is such an art to be able to abstract things into a simple and intuitive part of a user interface that people can identify with. Her work has defined a lot of what iconography has become in software today.”
At WWDC, Taylor hopes to meet more of the global iOS developer community as well as see all the action live at the keynote. The end of his time at the academy is fast approaching but he has some big plans. “The dream would be a job at Apple but I would also be excited to take forward a couple of app ideas with some friends from the Academy in a start-up.”
WWDC 2019 runs from Monday June 3 – to Friday June 7. Catch up on all the headline news at standard.co.uk/WWDC
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