GoKawiilWhile at Apple Park this week for WWDC, I had the opportunity to sit down with two Swift Student Challenge Distinguished Winners to talk about their apps and what it’s like giving a surprise demo to Tim Cook and John Ternus.
Asul by Karen-Happuch P. Henneh
First, I chatted with Karen-Happuch P. Henneh, the developer behind an app called Asul. Asul is an offline flood navigation app that uses flood data and weather forecasts to guide people in making safer travel decisions.
Karen explained to me:
My app is called Asul, which means flowing water in my language. I’m from Ghana in West Africa. Anytime it rains, the streets get flooded. I even have videos from just Monday showing what the streets look like. A lady driving might just drive into a flooded area because the normal GPS is only going to tell you, “Turn right, turn left.” And with the weather, it’s just going to tell you it’s going to rain from this time to that time. But people don’t know which specific places that rain has affected or which roads are flooded. Throughout history, it’s the same places that keep getting flooded. So if the rain is intense, those places are almost certainly going to flood. We can predict that. That’s what the app does. Up to 12 hours ahead of time, it uses weather data and historical geography to tell you that because of this rain and how intense it is, these places are going to be flooded, so people know what to avoid. And if you need to move, the app guides you on which specific places are safe. There are some communities that are low-lying and very close to rivers and lakes. The population there is vulnerable, and if it rains, those places flood all the time. So there’s a platform where users can see the entire city. They’re able to see which places are highlighted red, yellow, and green. Red means it’s completely flooded and it’s a danger zone. Yellow means it’s flooded, but people should be cautious. Green means it’s a safe area. So even before it rains, before the flooding happens, people who are in danger zones know that they need to evacuate or move so that lives are saved.
For Karen, there was clear personal inspiration behind creating Asul: more than 150 lost their lives in 2015 during tragic flooding in Accra, the largest city in Ghana.
“I strongly believe that the devastating outcomes of flooding are not just a weather issue. It’s a lack-of-information issue,” Karen explained to me. “If people know that these areas are going to be affected, they’re able to make informed decisions ahead of time and save their lives.”
NodeLab by Aayush Mehrotra
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Aayush Mehrotra, a 14-year-old developer, created an app called NodeLab and was also named a Swift Student Challenge Distinguished Winner. NodeLab aims to give students a clean, visual, and interactive way to learn more about machine learning.
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