Each year, the challenge invites students to apply their coding skills and engage with the company in a unique way. This year’s winner, AJ Nettles, is a second-year graduate student in cybersecurity at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Department of Computer Science. His app, “CryptOh?”, won Apple’s Swift Student Challenge 2024 due to its creativity, innovation, social impact, and inclusivity.
Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations, Susan Prescott, emphasized the importance of encouraging students from all backgrounds to participate in the challenge. Nettles’ winning app educates users on the importance of cybersecurity and guides them on creating stronger passwords for online accounts. It also serves as a password manager that is encrypted using the Secure Enclave on Apple devices.
Nettles expressed his gratitude for the opportunity to participate in the challenge and highlighted the support he received from his family, fiancée, and friends who acted as beta testers for his app. He looks forward to attending this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June. The challenge allowed Nettles to demonstrate his problem-solving skills and commitment to cybersecurity education in an engaging way.
Overall, Nettles’ win highlights the importance of encouraging students from all backgrounds to showcase their coding skills through challenges like this one. It also shows how these skills can be applied in creative ways that benefit society as a whole.