Swift Student Challenge 2025 announced by Apple

Apple is excited to introduce the Swift Student Challenge, a program dedicated to empowering the next generation of developers, creators, and entrepreneurs. This initiative has allowed thousands of student developers to exhibit their creativity and coding skills through app playgrounds while acquiring valuable real-world experience that can benefit their future careers.

Apple announces the Swift Student Challenge 2025

Applications for the Swift Student Challenge will open in February 2025 and will remain open for three weeks. Sign up to receive notifications about this challenge and other related opportunities. In the past, participants have crafted apps addressing various real-world issues, from connecting peers with mental health resources to promoting sustainability efforts on campus. We encourage aspiring developers to brainstorm and develop innovative app ideas that tackle important challenges in their communities and beyond.

This year, we will select 350 winners whose submissions exemplify excellence in innovation, creativity, social impact, or inclusivity. Among these winners, 50 Distinguished Winners will be recognized for their outstanding work and invited to join us for an unforgettable three-day experience at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino. All winners will also receive a one-year membership in the Apple Developer Program, a special gift from Apple, and additional benefits.

Coding with Swift

Learning to code with Swift opens up numerous opportunities for app development. Join a global community of aspiring developers and utilize tools like Swift Playgrounds and Xcode to bring your app ideas to life. Swift Playgrounds is ideal for beginners, providing essential guidance from initial coding to app launch, while Xcode serves as a powerful development environment for those with prior experience.

Designing your app

Innovative apps stem from thoughtful ideas that address specific problems. Use the App Design Workbook to understand the design process, including defining, prototyping, testing, and iterating. Enhance your skills with the "Get Started with Apps" and "Keep Going with Apps" tutorials. Remember to create an app playground for the Swift Student Challenge that features an interactive scene, ready for submission.

Testing and community engagement

Thoroughly test your app by sharing it with friends and family for feedback on functionality and user experience. Engage with the Apple Developer Forums for support and connection with fellow participants, and ensure to include the Swift Student Challenge tag in your posts.

Distinguished winners

From an esteemed group of 350 total winners, we’ll name 50 Distinguished Winners whose work is truly exceptional and invite them to join us — in person — for three inspiring days at Apple in Cupertino, where they’ll gain invaluable insights from Apple experts and engineers, connect with their peers, and enjoy a host of unforgettable experiences. Travel and lodging included.

The Distinguished Winner experience in 2024:

AJ Nettles (USA)

Distinguished Winner AJ Nettles says his summer trip to Cupertino during WWDC24 was an exhilarating three days of activity and community. “You know when you come back from an amusement park, and you’re all full of energy?” he says. “That’s what it felt like.”

The Alabama native created his security-minded app CryptOh to encourage people to think more about the strength of their passwords, no matter what software or device they happen to be using. “If the only thing you get out of CryptOh is, ‘I should use a password manager,’ even if you never use CryptOh again, that’s a win,” he says.

During his three days in Cupertino, Nettles got the chance to watch the Keynote live at Apple Park, show off his work to Apple executives, and become a greater part of the developer community. “I already had a fire burning,” he says, “but visiting Apple Park threw gasoline on that fire. I think everybody has a little bit of imposter syndrome, and this was really the first time I thought, ‘You know what, I made it.’ And now I’m ready to keep pushing.”

Keitaro Kawahara (Japan)

For this year’s Challenge, Distinguished Winner Keitaro Kawahara submitted an app called PuzzlePix that automatically generates puzzles from a person’s photos. “I got the idea from watching my younger sister take out an old puzzle and play with it,” says Kawahara. “And players can adjust the difficulty, which makes it suitable for a wide range of ages.” His primary playtester? That same sister.

Kawahara, an economics student at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo, says his time at Apple was an incredible experience. “I heard from engineers involved in Apple Vision Pro. I participated in an in-person design lab. And I spoke with members of the Metal engineering team,” he says. “It was fascinating to hear firsthand how people who have such a global impact create their products. I was particularly struck by the idea that software engineering is a team sport, where multiple discussions and failures are crucial to success. I want to carry that message with me and use it to become a better engineer.”

Kawahara came home with new connections as well. “Beyond the technical knowledge I gained about engineering, design, and leadership, I got to meet so many amazing people. The chance to form connections with people from around the world was incredible.”

Ruoshan Li (China)

Three years ago, Distinguished Winner Ruoshan Li joined an iOS club at her school in China to begin learning coding and design. “It’s not always easy for me,” she says. “I’m not a computer science major; I’m studying social work. So I’ve learned a lot of new skills.”

She’s learned them fast. Li’s Challenge submission, Deep Blue Tangram, is an ocean-based puzzle game that uses augmented reality and is geared toward young children. The idea was driven both by her desire to “help the disadvantaged using the power of technology” and something a little closer to home. “I have a big family with a lot of nephews and nieces in kindergarten and elementary school,” she says. “They all play mobile games, so I wanted to build something that would be helpful for their development.”

In her first visit to Apple Park, she met directly with Apple engineers, learned about submitting her game to the App Store, and even experienced something of a full-circle moment. “Every year, the iOS club at our school watches the Keynote, even though it’s very late here in China. It’s hard to describe the feeling of being there in person; I had to make myself calm down and dive into all the updates.”

Vildan Kocabas (Germany)

Distinguished Winner Vildan Kocabas fit a trip to California into a calendar that already included finishing medical school in her native Germany. “I had to work out the travel a little,” she laughs, “but I wouldn’t have missed WWDC for the world.”

Kocabas was recognized for MyCycle, an app she designed and built in her “down time” from med school. “You have a little more time in your last year,” she says, with a smile. MyCycle is a period tracker that doubles as an educational resource for “all women, regardless of their background or education,” she says. “The app explains the data. It’ll say, ‘OK, your estrogen’s high. Now here’s what that means.’”

At Apple Park, Kocabas got a chance to meet software engineers from the Health team and present to a group of UI/UX designers, for whom she had a request. “I asked them for really honest thoughts on my UI,” she says. She needn’t have worried: Her work easily won over the designers, who lauded the app’s visuals — Kocabas contributed all of the app’s illustrations — and ease of use. “Visiting WWDC gave me a glimpse of what could be possible at the intersection of medicine and technology, and made me realize how much more I could do in this field,” she says.

Eligibility

The Swift Student Challenge is designed for student developers who are cultivating their software development skills. Make sure to review the current eligibility conditions to confirm that you’re qualified to participate. Please note that we can’t accept submissions from applicants who are employed as professional developers.

Applying

To be eligible for the Challenge, at the time you submit your app playground you must:

• Be 13 years of age or older in the United States, or the equivalent minimum age in the relevant jurisdiction (for example, 16 years of age in the European Union);*
• Be registered for free with Apple as an Apple developer or be a member of the Apple Developer Program; and
• Fulfill one of the following requirements:
• Be enrolled in an accredited academic institution or official homeschool equivalent;
• Be enrolled in a STEM organization’s educational curriculum;
• Be enrolled in an Apple Developer Academy; or
• Have graduated from high school or equivalent within the past 6 months and be awaiting acceptance or have received acceptance to an accredited academic institution.
   

You can receive a Swift Student Challenge award up to four times. You may be selected as a Distinguished Winner one time only.

Building your app playground

Create an interactive scene in an app playground that can be experienced within three minutes. Be creative. If you need inspiration, use the provided templates for a head start on more advanced creations. Make them your own by adding graphics, audio, and more.

Requirements:

• Your submission must be an app playground (.swiftpm) in a ZIP file.
• Your creation should not rely on a network connection and any resources used in your app playground should be included locally in the ZIP file. Submissions will be judged offline.
• Your ZIP file can be up to 25 MB.
• Your submission must be created by you as an individual or a template modified by you as an individual. Group work will not be considered. You may include third-party open source licensed code and/or public domain images and sounds, with credit and an explanation of why it was used.
• Your app playground must be built with and run on Swift Playgrounds 4.5 or later, or Xcode 16 or later. You may incorporate the use of Apple Pencil.
• All content should be in English.