6 Girls Who Have Won the Apple WWDC Scholarship
Once a year, Apple sheds some of its secrecy to host their annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) where some of their biggest announcements for the year are made. If you're an iPhone, iPad, Macbook, or Apple Music enthusiast — or a developer for one of the myriad apps that have blown up on iOS — it's basically like the tech Super Bowl.
But it's not all seasoned developers and Silicon Valley superstars. In fact, many up-and-comers, including teen girls, also get their chance to attend WWDC and glean insights from some of the tech world's best and brightest. And Apple even hosts a WWDC scholarship program to bring the next generation of talented coders and developers to California to soak up all WWDC has to offer.
This year, Teen Vogue collaborated with Apple to appoint one of the lucky scholarship winners as our on-the-ground correspondent to bring readers the best of WWDC, which this year takes place in San Jose from June 5 to 9. But until that lucky recipient is named, take a look back at some of the young women who have received the WWDC scholarship in the past. And keep your eye on them — we have a feeling they're going to be the next big names you need to know.
Courtesy of Harshita Gupta1/7Harshita Gupta
Harshita Gupta attended San Jose High School where she was a programmer for a robotics team. During her time in high school she designed apps, was a member of NCWIT and a high school liaison for Girls Teaching Girls to Code.
Harshita is now a freshman at Harvard where she’s currently building an iOS app for the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter. She built the prototype of this app at Facebook’s Global Hackathon Finals in November of last year and won 2nd place and a $5k prize.
Courtesy of Shannon Yan2/7Shannon Yan
Shannon is 17 years old and from Oakland, California. Shannon discovered her love for coding her sophomore year of high school and since then has focused on teaching herself through online tutorials. Two summers ago, she became involved with Girls Who Code where she spent the summer at Square learning several programming languages. It was through that experience she realized she wanted as many people as possible to fall in love with coding like she did. Shannon started running programs and camps across the Bay Area teaching coding to elementary school students (many of whom are underprivileged), hoping to inspire young children to participate in the space. Shannon is a strong advocate for gender diversity within computer science and is starring in Girls Who Code's new YouTube show aimed towards exposing more young women to computer science.
Last summer, she interned at USC's Interaction Lab with Ph.D. students to program a robot to teach math concepts to autistic children. The project is sponsored by the National Science Foundation and is in conjunction with Yale and MIT. Continuing her passion for activism, Shannon spoke at the very first Female Governors Summit at Facebook about her experience in STEM and how state legislatures can close the gender gap in CS. She recently walked the runway in Karlie Kloss's fashion show debuting her very first collection with Express.
Shannon was also featured in Teen Vogue’s 21 Under 21.
Courtesy of Anvitha Vijay3/7Anvitha Vijay
Anvitha was the youngest student scholarship winner at last year’s WWDC, attending the conference at just 9 years old. Anvitha is a passionate entrepreneur and iOS app developer with a love for creating things people will enjoy using. She has already launched two apps for children on the App Store which she coded using Swift. Anvitha has been featured in the press several times and was the youngest winner of the Student Edge Award, an opportunity for developers to pitch their app concepts to investors. At the age of 8, she spoke to about 100 developers in Melbourne, sharing her experience. Her perseverance and hard work keep her motivated, and she is now focused on learning to market her apps. Since WWDC, she was a panelist alongside professors and key players in the technology-education-innovation space and spoke to a few hundred people during the International Education in Games Summit 2016.
Courtesy of Kiera Cawley4/7Kiera Cawley
Living in New York, Kiera has attended WWDC two years in a row (2015 and 2016). She is 14 years old and has already worked on several apps, including Knightly Moves, a chess game, and Healthy-Food-Compass, an app that helps you find healthy food on the go. She was inspired to get into coding when her mom (chef) and dad (construction worker) encouraged her to sign up for iOS courses. In addition to being an awesome coder, Kiera is a wrestler and mentor for Coder Dojo, a community based programming club that teaches students (ages 7-17) how to code, develop websites, apps, programs, games and explore technology. She has also been enrolled with the Nano Hacker Academy since 2015.
Photo: Ashley Armitage5/7Kai Morton
Kai is in her senior year at Bishop O’Dowd High School in Oakland. She is an athlete, member of the robotics team, avid video gamer, bassist, and is passionate about equaling the playing field for under-represented youth. She discovered her love for technology in middle school, pursuing her interest through enrolling in various workshops and classes. Through her participation in many coding camps and workshops, Kai has learned to program with several languages. Kai is currently teaching herself iOS development and using Swift as part of her AP independent project. Kai aspires to pursue a career in the video gaming industry and to become the CEO of her own tech company after attending college. Just recently she was signed to The Society Management as a creative model to continue to spread her message of the importance of coding to a broader audience.
Kai was also featured in Teen Vogue’s 21 Under 21.
Courtesy of Instagram/@theanushakhan6/7Anusha Khan
Anusha became interested in coding after a Girls Who Code iOS workshop for beginners and a hackathon at UNC. She believes programming is her “secret superpower” because it gives her the ability to create things. After seeing what her little brother went through after a bone marrow transplant, she is working on a “reminder” app (still in prototype phase) that will help children and adults who have to take a lot of medication keep track of when and where they’ve taken it. She missed her high school graduation last year to attend WWDC because “Apple comes first,” and wore her cap and gown at the conference.
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