Apple’s Swift Student Challenge has often been positioned as a student coding competition, but Apple increasingly wants it to represent something much broader: a space where young developers can connect technology with creativity, culture, and personal passion.
That vision was central to Apple’s messaging this year, with Susan Prescott, Apple’s Vice President of Worldwide Developer Relations, highlighting this to Shaurya Sharma, Technology Editor, Hindustan Times Digital, in an exclusive interaction about how the company wants students from different backgrounds to feel included in app development and technology.
“We really want to engage and inspire young people to find things that are important to them , passions and interests in their personal lives, in their community, or even more broadly than that , and feel that they have the power to make an impact,” Prescott said.
“The Swift Student Challenge is designed to do that. It’s not only about how well you can code. Of course there are technical aspects to it, but it’s also about critical thinking, problem solving, and how you can use technology to make your world and the world a better place.”
Apple announced 350 winners globally this year, including 50 distinguished winners from 37 countries. India, according to Prescott, delivered “a fantastic showing” both in submissions and winners.
Among this year’s standout winners from India was Ananya Babu Prasad, creator of Mandala Kala, an app inspired by traditional mandala art that blends gesture controls, audio inputs, and digital drawing tools into a more accessible creative experience. She joins a growing group of young Indian developers recognised by Apple, including Gayatri Goundadkar, whose childhood memories of creating Warli paintings with her grandmother eventually inspired Steady Hands, an app that uses Apple Pencil stabilisation to help individuals with tremors create art more comfortably.
Apple announced 350 winning submissions this year from 37 countries. India, according to Prescott, delivered “a fantastic showing” both in submissions and winners.
Turning traditional mandala art into an interactive experience
For Prasad, the idea behind Mandala Kala came from a deeply personal space.
“I’ve been interested in different forms of art and crafts throughout my entire life,” Prasad said. “Mandala art is something I connect to because it’s traditionally Indian, and even now my mother does it.”
Traditional mandala art is known for its symmetry and detail, but it can also feel intimidating for beginners. Ananya wanted to remove that barrier.
“Traditionally, it’s been done on paper. It’s symmetrical patterns, and it takes a lot of patience and time to sit and do it. You also need a lot of experience,” she said. “But I wanted to make it inclusive to everyone, where you can start with a blank page and still be able to come up with something that looks really good.”
The app approaches mandala creation through multiple input methods. Users can create shapes using hand gestures, with different poses generating petals, circles, or triangular patterns. The longer a pose is held, the larger the visual element becomes.
Another standout feature is what Prasad calls “audio-to-mandala.” The app can listen to speech, music, or ambient sound and transform those audio patterns into layered mandala designs.
“It also includes a drawing mode where you can traditionally draw whatever you want,” she said. “If you draw in just one segment, it repeats throughout as a circle.”
The broader goal, according to Prasad, was to ensure that even someone with no artistic background could comfortably participate.
“A lot of people think, ‘Will I be able to do this? I’ve never done this before,’” Prasad said. “That was the main intention behind the app , so anyone is able to create a mandala with it.”
Where AI helped , and where human creativity mattered more
Like many young developers today, Prasad also experimented with AI tools during development. But she was quick to draw a distinction between technical assistance and the app’s creative foundation.
“I did use AI tools, but mainly for debugging,” she said. “I’m new to Swift. I’ve never developed a project in Swift before, so to understand Swift and its frameworks, and while reading the documentation on Apple’s developer website, I used AI to understand all that.”
She added that AI became useful while troubleshooting coding errors or understanding implementation details that were difficult to find elsewhere.
“Whenever I ran into errors which I couldn’t figure out through Google, I did use AI,” she added. “But all of the ideology behind the app is mainly my own, by experimenting with different techniques and when one idea failed, trying to implement it in a different way.”
That balance between AI-assisted development and human creativity is something Apple itself appears comfortable embracing.
Prescott noted that AI usage is “obviously part of how students are using technology today” and clarified that such tools are not discouraged within the challenge.
“AI is obviously part of how students are using technology today,” Prescott said. “Exactly what happens can change a little bit, but the goal of the programme stays very strong and very solid.”
Why Apple believes creativity matters as much as coding
One recurring theme throughout the discussion was Apple’s attempt to position software development as accessible even to students outside traditional computer science backgrounds.
Prescott said Apple wants students pursuing fields such as art, biology, or design to feel equally welcome in the ecosystem.
“Even if their major isn’t computer science, even if their passion is art or biology or anything else, they too can participate using technology to do great things and make the world a better place,” Prescott said.
According to her, the Swift Student Challenge works best when projects emerge from genuine personal interest.
“When students take their personal passions and connect them with technology, it helps create a connection for them,” Prescott added.
Interestingly, when asked what differentiates many Indian winners, Prescott did not point toward coding expertise first.
“You might expect me to say deep coding expertise,” Prescott said, “but passion and strong problem solving are probably the most critical things we hear.”
She also highlighted curiosity and experimentation as recurring traits among standout participants.
“We heard Ananya talk about trial and error on certain things, discovering tools that helped her do more,” she said. “Passion and curiosity are characteristics of a lot of the people who stand out.”
Apple ecosystem advantages and lowering barriers to entry
Ananya Babu Prasad credited several Apple frameworks and hardware integrations for helping shape the experience of Mandala Kala.
“What I really liked was Apple’s framework called PencilKit.”
“It integrates very well with Apple Pencil and captures the strokes wonderfully.”
She also pointed to easy access to hardware features such as the camera and microphone, both of which played an important role in enabling gesture and audio-based interactions.
For Apple, expanding accessibility into its ecosystem remains part of the larger strategy.
Prescott highlighted newer lower-priced hardware, education discounts, and the growing capability of devices like iPad as important steps.
“We really want to make our products accessible to people as much as possible,” Prescott said. “Hopefully you’ll continue to see us doing things to make sure that the price points and capabilities of our products continue to meet different people where they are.”
At a time when AI tools are changing how students learn and create software, Apple appears to be leaning into a more human-centred narrative: one where coding is not only about engineering skill, but also about creativity, storytelling, experimentation, and cultural identity.
And in the case of Mandala Kala, that philosophy feels particularly visible , a traditional Indian art form reimagined through gestures, sound, and software by a student developer finding her own voice in technology.
