[{"jcr:title":"Computer Science student stands out in Apple international competition"},{"richText":"Tomás Rodrigues Alessi created an app that helps with eating habits and was selected for the Swift Student Challenge","authorDate":"23/04/2024 17h08","author":"Tiago Cordeiro","madeBy":"Por","title":"Computer Science student stands out in Apple international competition","variant":"imagecolor"},{"containerType":"containerTwo"},{"jcr:title":"Grid Container Section","layout":"responsiveGrid"},{"targetId":"compartilhar1","text":"Confira mais em:","tooltipText":"Link copiado com sucesso."},{"text":"Develop an application that uses sophisticated technology, with creativity, to generate social impact and inclusion. This has been Apple’s proposal, once a year, since 2020, with the global  [Swift Student Challenge](https://developer.apple.com/swift-student-challenge/) . The name refers to  [Swift](https://www.apple.com/br/swift/)  programming language, developed by the company to enable the creation of apps for iOS, Mac, Apple TV and Apple Watch.   Registration for the 2024 edition began on February 5th and lasted three weeks.  [Tomás Rodrigues Alessi](https://www.wwdcscholars.com/s/7283627E-AE1F-4201-9DDE-646A349578CE/2024) , 20 years old, student in the fifth semester of  [Computer Science](https://www.insper.edu.br/en/undergraduate/) , learned about the competition during school holidays through the group of students of the program. I had a trip scheduled for Carnival, which reduced the time needed to produce an application that met all the competition’s requirements in a timely manner. To make the task even more difficult, Tomás was not familiar with the Swift language. Still, he decided to try.   “I thought about participating because I have always been interested in competitions. It was also an opportunity to get in touch with the Swift language. But I didn’t think I would be selected,” he says. On the eve of Easter holiday, the names of the 350 winners were published, among applications presented from all regions of the world. And the name of Tomás was among them.   “I was at Congonhas airport, on my way to Curitiba,” he says, referring to the city where he was born and his family lives. “Then I browsed through the website and found a ‘Congratulations’ message. I thought it was a simple ‘congratulations on your participation’.” It wasn’t. He got a certificate, a one-year subscription to the Apple Developer Program and an AirPods Max.   Searching for a theme   Tomás initially thought about studying Medicine but ended up choosing Computer Science. In search of a top college and a competitive job market, he decided to move to São Paulo and study at Insper. “There are project-based colleges, but I wanted a combination of practice and theory. At Insper, after a few weeks, we already have programming classes. And we learn to learn, which proved to be very difficult at the beginning of my degree but led me to develop great academic autonomy.”   It was learning to learn that helped him master the Swift language quickly. The next step was to think of an application that would meet the requirements of the competition. “I watched a playlist of projects from previous editions on YouTube. The video pointed out those who won and those who were not successful. I had an initial idea: to create an app with quick information for natural emergencies, from floods to earthquakes. But the technological challenge would not be relevant,” he says.   His girlfriend, a medical student, suggested an alternative: developing an application that would help lay people identify the composition of food on labels, and whether that food is healthy. “I then started to develop it, sharing the initial results with her and my family. Their feedback was valuable.”   Label reader   The application could not use an Internet connection, which led to the solution of using user’s scanner via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to extract texts from nutrition tables on labels. “I sought support in the tools available from Apple itself, I analyzed the photo standards most used in the United States, and I carried out a survey of the food evaluation standards of the FDA, the regulatory agency of the US Department of Health,” he describes.   Eventually, he developed a scoring system. The result is the Know Your Food application, which delivers a nutritional assessment of each product, indicating whether it is good, neutral, or bad. Apple recognized the value of the solution, and the student was among the 350 selected.   However, his app was not among the 50 best projects included in the Distinguished Winners category, which will be entitled to participate in Apple’s annual developer conference, the  [WWDC 2024](https://developer.apple.com/wwdc24/) , in June, in California. Nevertheless, Tomás says he is pleased to be on the list of the 350 selected projects. “I was surprised by the achievement,” says the student. “And now I want to participate in the 2025 edition and be among the Distinguished Winners.”"},{"text":"Texto do conteúdo (segunda parte)"}]