20-year-old Indian girl among winners of Apple competition: made app that can strengthen eyes

Apple WWDC 2023: what is the Swift Student Challenge?

The Swift Student Challenge organised at Apple WWDC 2023 is a coding competition for students, which incentivises the latter to build applications that solve for a real-world cause. It is an annual competition, where selected winners are given a chance to visit Apple’s headquarters during the developer conference to gain experience.

In a press statement, Apple said that the number of winners has been increased from 350 to 375. Susan Prescott, vice-president of worldwide developer relations at Apple, said in the statement, “This year’s submissions demonstrated not only the next generation’s commitment to building tools that will improve our lives, but also a willingness to embrace new technologies and tools, and deploy them in original and creative ways.”

Jain’s submission was one among Swift Student Challenge’s list of first-time winners.

What was Jain’s idea?

To be one of the winners, Jain, a student at Indore’s Medi-Caps University, designed an app that can track eye movements by following a ball around the screen. The goal of the app is to help strengthen eye muscles and aid movement — which can be key in helping speed up the recovery process from ailments such as facial paralysis or eye misalignment.

In a statement describing the way forward, Jain said, “My next goal is to get feedback and make sure it’s effective and user-friendly, and then release it on the App Store. Ultimately, I want to expand it so that it helps strengthen all of the muscles in the face, and I hope it can one day serve as a therapy tool that people like my friend’s uncle can use at their own pace.”

Who are the other winners?

The other two first-time winners are 21-year-old US-based Yemi Agesin, and 25-year old Italy-based Marta Michelle Caliendo. Agesin built a first-person baseball game, and plans to follow this up by developing an augmented reality-based sports game, and an app that allows filmmakers shooting with iPhones to visualise special effects while shooting itself. The latter will use Apple’s ARKit and RealityKit.

Caliendo, a natural sciences student in Naples, Italy, who is also enroled at Apple Developer Academy, built a memory game that uses “anatomically correct dinosaur fossils” as the items to choose.

Apple’s developer conference begins June 5th. The conference’s expected highlight is the release of the latest generation of iOS, called iOS 17. However, the special highlight of the keynote is expected to be Apple’s much awaited and rumoured mixed reality headset, and a purported ‘xrOS’ to be launched with it. Apple is also expected to introduce a new 15-inch MacBook Air at the event, while the introduction of the third generation of its custom PC chip, M3, has also been touted.