This Indian-origin girl is the youngest developer at Apple WWDC
They say big things come in small sizes and this hold true for Anvitha Vijay.
Anvitha Vijay, a nine-year-old Indian-origin girl who develops educational applications for children, was one of the youngest attendee that Apple selected to attend the WWDC 2016 in San Francisco.
Vijay is attending the annual WWDC’s event this year as part of Apple’s scholarship program, which gives free tickets to developers around the world who build applications for Apple devices. She had applied for the scholarship online. This event is quite a huge opportunity for developers and coders worldwide, being able to attend it is dream come true for Anvitha Vijay.
She now dreams of meeting the tech giants CEO Tim Cook. “It’s my dream to go to WWDC and meet Tim Cook,” she said.
She has already built two iOS apps for iPhone and iPad. Out of 350 recipients this year, 120 are students under the age of 18, Fortune said, adding that the number of women who applied for the scholarship tripled this year, and this year, 22 percent of scholarship winners are women, which is an increase from last year.
Vijay, who lives with her parents in Melbourne, Australia, at the age of seven realized that her piggy bank did not have enough money to hire a developer to make her an app. Therefore, she decided to teach herself how to code. Vijay spent a year watching free coding tutorials on YouTube and the web, and learned how to program.
“Coding was so challenging. But I’m so glad I stuck with it,” she said.
Vijay’s apps were inspired by her toddler sister, who was learning how to talk and identify animals. Her brainchild was the Smartkin’s Animals app, which uses sounds, and flashcards to help teach children 100 different animal names and sounds. She later developed a similar interactive iOS app for children to identify and learn colors.
“Turning an idea for an app involves a lot of hard work. There are so many components to building an app, including prototyping, design and wireframing, user interface design and then coding and testing,” she added. She is already working on her third iOS app. This will help kids her own age set goals, Fortune explains.
The WWDC 2016 conference hosted by Apple has kicked off yesterday and will be held until June 17 at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco.
