Young designers show off their smartphone apps in Hong Kong contest
Smartphone programs developed by children to help make life a little easier - for young and old - put to the test in local competition
Coding is often said to be like a second language to today's youth - and 16 young designers proved that point yesterday at a competition to showcase their smartphone apps.
Now in its second year, the AppJamming Summit showcased work that could help young people - and those much older.
Among the young competitors was nine-year-old Sebastian Doe, who created a smartphone app to help language learners practice writing Chinese characters. He moved to the city from Australia with his family last year and started learning Putonghua.
"Writing the characters is the hardest part [of learning Chinese]," said Doe, explaining where he got the inspiration to create such an app.
According to Michelle Sun, founder and chief executive of competition organiser First Code Academy, Doe's innovation showed how different the world was now to when older generations were growing up.
"Back then we'd learn Mandarin as a second language ... nowadays coding is learnt like a second language for this generation," said Sun, whose academy runs coding classes and camps for children.
Sun says learning coding is important in a world saturated by technology. "This generation grew up with accessible technology," she said. "They need to learn how to create and not just consume technology."
A team of four from Pak Kau College in Tin Shui Wai designed an "elderly detection" app, which could help a family track a missing elderly person. After downloading the app into the elderly person's phone, users can input a home address and set a distance parameter. If the person leaves the parameter, an alert will be sent out to their next of kin.
"We've seen news about missing and lost elderly people, and we hope this can help," said one of the four boys, Chan Pak-long, 14. "A lot of old people would not like to have someone tagging along with them all the time. Hopefully this app could give them some independence and keep their dignity intact, while ensuring their safety."
The team spent two weeks on research and a month building the app. They hope to develop it further, so the app can work even when the phone is turned off.
Another app, created by Bonzi Li Ho-yin, 13, gives an overview of government departments.
"Even Hongkongers often don't know the government structure and functions well, so I've created a simple app to help consolidate information and even give locations of their offices," he said. Li threw in a -style game too, in case "users get too bored with just dealing with information".
And the winner? An app that turns a smartphone into a mouse or presentation tool, by a team of four 13-year-olds from the NT Heung Yee Kuk Yuen Long District Secondary School. They will take part in the MIT App Inventor Summit in Boston in July.
