“Rising up in LA, I’ve all the time been conscious of the wildfire dangers that include dwelling in Southern California,” Marina Lee, a 21-year-old pc science pupil on the College of Southern California, tells Entrepreneur. “However the urgency really hit house when my grandmother discovered herself within the evacuation zones in the course of the latest LA wildfires again in January — she known as me as a result of she received an evacuation alert on her telephone.”
Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Apple. Marina Lee.
Lee remembers being overwhelmed by the state of affairs and not sure of what to pack, the place to go and methods to keep up to date. Realizing that so many different folks had been most likely experiencing the identical confusion and worry, she determined to construct an app to solve the problem: EvacuMate.
Lee’s EvacuMate helps customers put together an emergency guidelines of important objects, add copies of vital paperwork by way of their iPhone digital camera roll and import emergency contacts by way of their iPhone’s contacts listing. The app additionally permits customers to watch air high quality ranges and put collectively a first-aid equipment.
Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Marina Lee
It took Lee about one month to develop the app and submit it to Apple’s Swift Student Challenge, a contest that invitations college students throughout the globe to enter their unique app playgrounds constructed with Apple’s Swift coding language.
Most college students start getting ready their submissions months upfront, so the deadline “felt a little bit tight,” Lee notes. Nevertheless, she was able to rise to the event, having began her coding journey in center college and accomplished a number of initiatives within the years since.
Associated: Apple Is Making a Major Change to Its Operating Systems Across All Products. Here’s What We Know.
As a “very artistic” individual, Lee first centered on the app’s design and structure, she says. Then she turned her consideration to the sensible options. Lee requested family and friends for feedback as she labored on EvacuMate, and the “very collaborative course of” allowed her to have interaction along with her audience and perceive how they’d work together with the app.
Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Marina Lee
“I undoubtedly stay up for assembly different Swift Scholar Problem winners [at WWDC].”
Out of this yr’s 350 successful submissions, Lee was chosen as one of many 50 distinguished winners invited to attend the Worldwide Builders Convention (WWDC) at Apple Park. The 2025 convention, which takes place in-person and on-line from June 9-13, kicks off with CEO Tim Cook‘s keynote deal with and can showcase the corporate’s new expertise and software program.
A few of this yr’s other distinguished winners embody Taiki Hamomoto, 22, of Japan, whose app Hanufada Techniques teaches customers methods to play the standard Japanese card sport; Luciana Ortiz Nolasco, 15, of Mexico, whose app BreakDownCosmic gives a digital gathering place for astronomy lovers; and Nahom Worku, 21, who grew up in Ethiopia and Canada and developed the app AccessEd, which supplies studying assets which can be accessible with or with out Wi-Fi connectivity.
“I undoubtedly stay up for assembly different Swift Scholar Problem winners [at WWDC] and different builders usually from the world over,” Lee says. “All through my years of involvement within the hackathon neighborhood, I have been capable of construct lasting friendships and connections with college students from all the world over, but it surely was solely by way of a digital setting. So attending this convention would actually convey that have in individual.”
Lee is at the moment interning as a front-end engineer at Amazon in Seattle, Washington. The position focuses on internet design and constructing person interfaces, a course of that, like coding, additionally provides her the possibility to get artistic, she says. She hopes to pursue comparable work that permits her to merge her ardour for creativity, artwork and coding after she graduates from school.
Different younger individuals who wish to learn to code and doubtlessly pursue an engineering profession ought to take into account taking part in hackathons, 24-48-hour occasions the place college students collaborate on initiatives and attend workshops, Lee says. Lee remembers being intimidated at first, however the expertise laid the inspiration for the place she is now.
“I met some new pals that I nonetheless communicate with to at the present time,” Lee says. “[The experience] allowed me to study extra about coding and turn into extra concerned within the hackathon neighborhood. I began organizing some [hackathons] myself and mentoring at different hackathons. It is a good first step in coding and actually lets you [join] the neighborhood.”
“Rising up in LA, I’ve all the time been conscious of the wildfire dangers that include dwelling in Southern California,” Marina Lee, a 21-year-old pc science pupil on the College of Southern California, tells Entrepreneur. “However the urgency really hit house when my grandmother discovered herself within the evacuation zones in the course of the latest LA wildfires again in January — she known as me as a result of she received an evacuation alert on her telephone.”
Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Apple. Marina Lee.
Lee remembers being overwhelmed by the state of affairs and not sure of what to pack, the place to go and methods to keep up to date. Realizing that so many different folks had been most likely experiencing the identical confusion and worry, she determined to construct an app to solve the problem: EvacuMate.
The remainder of this text is locked.
Be part of Entrepreneur+ at this time for entry.
