Meet Ishita, First Indian Girl getting the Apple Scholarship under WWDC Program

Every year, Apple conducts the World Wide Developer Conference, where the Cupertino giant announces the latest development for their products. This conference is all about the developer community of the Apple products including latest around OS X, iOS, watchOS, and tvOS. As you may have read, the company conducted its WWDC 2016 keynote yesterday late night (IST). But do make a note that it is an ongoing event, where attendees are scheduled for hands-on labs with Apple engineers and participate in in-depth sessions over the period of five days, i.e. June 13-17 for this year.

For most developers, it is all the same thing each year as they attend WWDC in San Francisco, but this year out of 350 Scholarship, there were many young developers hailing from different parts of the world. One such young mind was Ishita Mediratta’s. She is the first girl from India, who got the WWDC Scholarship from Apple. We got in touch with her and asked few questions, below is our interview with her.

Phone Radar: Tell us more about you & what do you do.

Ishita: I’m currently a 12th-grade student from Faridabad, Haryana, pursuing studies in the non-medical stream. I’ve been a Web developer for the past 4-5 years and this March, I learnt the basics of Apple’s Swift language.

Phone Radar: What is the WWDC Scholarship Program?

Ishita: For the past 5 years, Apple has been providing some wwdc tickets for free based on a challenge. This year 350 students received the scholarship and 125 out of those got travel assistance as well. Apple organizes a special scholar orientation before the main event and special seats are reserved for the scholars in the keynote. The scholars also get to meet Tim Cook and have a quick selfie session with him.

Phone Radar: What did you do to win this Scholarship (What Essay & App)?

Ishita: This year the challenge was to make an app based on Apple’s latest technologies and submit it along with two essays within 10 days. Since I am a beginner, I made an app on first aid. The app provides simple guides on various problems which can even be dictated to the user by the app, and one can also locate nearby chemists, hospitals and clinics via the app. The essays were on the challenges we faced and how we plan to motivate others into the cs field.

Phone Radar: How do you plan to do around Technology in the Future?

Ishita: I feel the technology in the future will mostly be in the form of smartwatches and holograms. So I’m hoping to contribute in the Artificial Intelligence field.

Phone Radar: How do you feel after getting this Scholarship?

Ishita: Getting a scholarship is a dream come true for an Apple fan like me. Also, being the first girl from India to get this scholarship makes it even more special. I got to see the keynote live and got to interact with students from different backgrounds.

Phone Radar: Are you working on any other projects or apps?

Ishita: I had made a voice modulation app last summer. Currently, I am running a gadget blog along with a Youtube channel by the name iGeekz.in

Introduction to WWDC Scholarship

Apple products are used by millions of people around the world in the form of Macbooks, iMacs, Mac Mini, iPhones, and iPads. To power these systems, there are apps and that’s when the needs arise for a developer community. The WWDC has been around for decades now, but in the past ten years, the number of developers interested to attend has increased. They are not just from one country, but all across the globe and they are not just millennial, but young teenagers who are interested in changing the world one app at a time.

That’s why Apple created this program couple year back, which allows these developers to fulfill their dreams of interacting with Apple Engineers and attend hands-on sessions to make use of latest software builds. It will allow them to integrate those features into their apps. Developers selected for a scholarship receives a free of charge ticket for WWDC 2016. Additionally, travel assistance is also granted to scholarship recipients.

How to Get Into WWDC Scholarship – Eligibility Criteria & More

If you’re a developer of Apps for Apple products ranging from iOS to Mac, or Watch apps to TV apps, then, you can take participate in this scholarship. Most importantly you will be only eligible for a WWDC scholarship if you’re a full or part-time student of age 13 or older, or a member or alumni of STEM organization and 13 years age or older. STEM is an abbreviation for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math is a subject collectivity called STEM. It is an education coalition where students pursue expertise in a combination of all these fields.

Every year the Cupertino giant opens up the application window sometime around April, the last date varies. Look out updated dates here for the next year scholarship for WWDC 2017.

Want to get into WWDC Scholarship? Follow the below information to prepare yourself.

Tell Us About Yourself

You have to sign in using your Apple ID that is associated with the Developer account you have. Note if your age is 13-17 years old and share your Apple ID with you, parents or legal guardian, you will be asked to enter your name. You also have to enter a contact number where Apple can reach you instantly.

Provide School/Membership Information

If you’re participating as a student, then you would have to provide the proof of your enrollment in the form of PDF or PNG. It can be your current class schedule or other proof and dean or principal’s contact information. Whereas if you’re a member of alumni of STEM organization, then all you need to do is provide a PDF or PNG of your membership information, as well as local leader’s contact information. While if you’re a student and member of the organization, then you would have to provide all of the above details.

Submit Your Apps & Essays

Applicants need to submit an app that they have worked on to develop by themselves. It should demonstrate creative use of Apple Technologies such as Live Photos, 3D Touch, Maps, Siri remote for tvOS, or even Apple Watch apps. For instance, it can be your school project, personal project, or even your existing software on the App Store. It doesn’t matter which programming skills you have used to create the application, most of all it should properly run on iOS, OS X, watchOS or tvOS, for whichever platform you have developed it.

Additionally, you are also required to write an essay about the coding process you have gone through for developing the app. There are a certain set of answers you need to write in this essay. Such as Why did you choose the feature and technology that you have used in your app. What technical challenges you have faced in implementing these features and technologies. And how did you overcome them? Moreover, if you were given more time, what would you like to improvise on your app?

Your role in creating the app should be defined clearly, which will help judges in the selection of scholarship. For instance, if you have worked as a team member in this app, what exactly did you worked on? How was the work divided? What challenges you faced in integrating each component? All these questions should be answered in a proper manner. Each set of the answer should be 500 words or less than it.

Benefits of WWDC Scholarship

Apple will give a free ticket to each developer selected for the WWDC Scholarship, which will entitle them to attend the WWDC 20XX conference, held every year in the month of June in San Francisco. Note that this Scholarship is awarded to 350 applicants only every year at Apple’s sole discretion. Travel assistance would be provided by Apple and would be granted for up to 125 scholarship recipients. If the scholar feels they would require travel assistance to attend the conference, then they should write the about it in 500 words or less.

To be considered for that you need to provide a letter of reference in the form of PDF or PNG from teacher, supervisor, or any other person of authority in your community. You have to make sure their role and contact information has been included. Most of all, young mind such as yourself would be getting access to around 1000 Apple Engineers and you got to brainstorm with them. They are hands-on with teach coding courses and answer your queries regarding new technologies released during the five-day conference.