Feature: Chinese winner of Apple Swift Student Challenge aims high

The screenshot shows Chinese student Dai Canglong (Top, R) sharing his thoughts on his project called "DebitCredit," a double-entry accounting app designed on the basis of "double-entry bookkeeping method, during a virtual meetup with Apple CEO Tim Cook. "I hope to make technology and services equally accessible to all by creating more meaningful apps," said Dai Canglong, a Chinese college student who won Apple's 2023 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC23) Swift Student Challenge. (Xinhua)

SAN FRANCISCO, June 9 (Xinhua) -- "I hope to make technology and services equally accessible to all by creating more meaningful apps," said Dai Canglong, a Chinese college student who won Apple's 2023 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC23) Swift Student Challenge.

The Swift Student Challenge is part of the WWDC23 held June 5-9, along with keynote events, labs, and workshops available online and free to millions of Apple developers. Every year in the lead-up to the WWDC, young people from around the globe use Swift Playgrounds to showcase their coding passion and skills.

Dai, a senior student from China's Central University of Finance and Economics, was among 375 students from over 30 countries and regions being selected as 2023 challenge winners.

He participated in the competition for the first time with his project called "DebitCredit", a double-entry accounting app designed on the basis of "double-entry bookkeeping method."

"The app aims to simplify this accounting method and help users learn this powerful financial tool, ultimately allowing everyone to manage their finances without any accounting knowledge with this tool," Dai said.

He attended a virtual meetup for a dozen of Swift Student Challenge winners during the WWDC23 and shared his thoughts on the work with Apple CEO Tim Cook who was very impressed with the standout project.

"As a part of China's vibrant iOS developer community, Canglong is helping people to find new ways to improve their lives. By making it simple for anyone to manage their finances, his work can help so many people achieve their goals," Cook said.

When Dai was in his first year of high school, he heard about the Swift Student Challenge and closely followed WWDC and its student challenge in the following years. "I have always wanted to participate in this challenge, and my biggest motivation came from developing a successful app last year," Dai told Xinhua on Friday.

The app called "GI Pizza Helper" has gained wide attention. It has been downloaded more than 300,000 times, with over 30,000 daily active users in App Store.

Dai's success is a microcosm of Chinese students' passion for coding. Since 2016, the China Collegiate Computer Competition Mobile Application Innovation Contest has attracted more than 20,000 students and helped hundreds of colleges and universities set up iOS clubs.

At the Apple Design and Development Accelerator in Shanghai, the company has worked one-on-one with developers from across China to help them take their apps from good to great. Since 2019, the accelerator has hosted sessions for developers from around the country, helping developers build on their ideas and bring cutting-edge apps to the market.

In recent years, Chinese developers have thrived on App Store in China and abroad.

In 2022, roughly as in previous years, China accounted for 51 percent of the billings and sales facilitated by the App Store ecosystem, the United States accounted for about 25 percent, and Europe 11 percent, according to a study by Analysis Group.

Economists from Analysis Group estimate in the study that last year, Chinese developers generated 523 billion U.S. dollars in total billings and sales from the sale of physical goods and services, 25 billion dollars from in-app advertising, and 21 billion dollars from digital goods and services.

Dai was excited to show his project to Cook along with other student winners and was determined to become a product manager in the future. "Through product design, technologies can be delegated to common people, they can benefit from the technologies. That's what an excellent product is about."

"Canglong and this amazing new generation of iOS developers around the world are shaping a better future for everyone, and we can't wait to see what he does next," Cook noted.