“Rising up in LA, I’ve at all times been conscious of the wildfire dangers that include dwelling in Southern California,” Marina Lee, a 21-year-old laptop science scholar on the College of Southern California, tells Entrepreneur. “However the urgency really hit residence when my grandmother discovered herself within the evacuation zones through the latest LA wildfires again in January — she known as me as a result of she received an evacuation alert on her cellphone.”
Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Apple. Marina Lee.
Lee recollects 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 have 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 essential paperwork by way of their iPhone digital camera roll and import emergency contacts by means of their iPhone’s contacts checklist. The app additionally permits customers to watch air high quality ranges and put collectively a first-aid package.
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 authentic app playgrounds constructed with Apple’s Swift coding language.
Most college students start making ready their submissions months upfront, so the deadline “felt a bit tight,” Lee notes. Nonetheless, she was able to rise to the event, having began her coding journey in center faculty and accomplished a number of initiatives within the years since.
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As a “very inventive” individual, Lee first targeted on the app’s design and format, 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 together with her target market 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 Pupil 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 know-how and software program.
A few of this yr’s other distinguished winners embody Taiki Hamomoto, 22, of Japan, whose app Hanufada Ways teaches customers methods to play the standard Japanese card recreation; Luciana Ortiz Nolasco, 15, of Mexico, whose app BreakDownCosmic presents 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 are out there with or with out Wi-Fi connectivity.
“I  undoubtedly stay up for assembly different Swift Pupil Problem winners [at WWDC] and different builders basically from the world over,” Lee says. “All through my years of involvement within the hackathon neighborhood, I have been in a position to construct lasting friendships and connections with college students from all the world over, but it surely was solely by means of a digital setting. So attending this convention would actually carry that have in individual.”
Lee is at present interning as a front-end engineer at Amazon in Seattle, Washington. The position focuses on net design and constructing consumer interfaces, a course of that, like coding, additionally offers her the prospect to get inventive, she says. She hopes to pursue related work that enables her to merge her ardour for creativity, artwork and coding after she graduates from school.
Different younger individuals who need to learn to code and doubtlessly pursue an engineering profession ought to think about collaborating in hackathons, 24-48-hour occasions the place college students collaborate on initiatives and attend workshops, Lee says. Lee recollects 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 today,” Lee says. “[The experience] allowed me to be taught extra about coding and develop 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 permits you to [join] the neighborhood.”
“Rising up in LA, I’ve at all times been conscious of the wildfire dangers that include dwelling in Southern California,” Marina Lee, a 21-year-old laptop science scholar on the College of Southern California, tells Entrepreneur. “However the urgency really hit residence when my grandmother discovered herself within the evacuation zones through the latest LA wildfires again in January — she known as me as a result of she received an evacuation alert on her cellphone.”
Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Apple. Marina Lee.
Lee recollects 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 have been most likely experiencing the identical confusion and worry, she determined to construct an app to solve the problem: EvacuMate.
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