Information Systems Student Wins Apple Software Developer Challenge
MS in Information Systems student Xikai Liu, ME’23, recently won Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference Swift Student Challenge. In the competition, students are given the opportunity to showcase their passion for coding by creating a Swift Playgrounds app project on the topic of their choosing.
Liu developed an iOS application titled Grandpa’s Farm using his iPad. In the application, the user can select what they would like to grow on a specific date, create automatic growth reminders, and are provided an overview of what they grew. Liu used Swift (a programming language) to make the application and SwiftUI (Apple’s UI toolkit) to build the user interface.
Liu joined the Information Systems program in fall of 2021 at Northeastern’s San Jose campus. Using what he learned in his courses, he was able to apply his skills to the challenge. When asked why he decided to join the competition, Liu said, “I was learning the Swift language and I thought this is a great chance to test how well I learned it.”
When asked what he learned from their WWDC submission, he states, “When you have a goal, it will push you going forward.” Liu dedicated his application to his grandfather, who always supported his studies and loves to grow plants in his own garden.