Michael Parekh - App Development

Computer science student Michael Parekh has been programming since the age of 16. But it wasn’t until 2023 that his passion became deeply personal. A close family member passed away unexpectedly from cardiac arrest, leaving Michael devastated. He felt helpless and longed for a way to channel his grief into something that could help the world around him and honor his loved one’s memory.

He created an iOS app called Pink with the goal of making life-saving knowledge accessible and appealing to children who might need it in a time of crisis. It’s designed to gamify how to teach CPR to students — helping young people learn the critical skill through interactive and engaging methods. To build Pink, he used Swift Playgrounds and AVFoundation, a toolkit that lets apps handle and process audio and video for Apple devices, on Mac. He also created custom illustrations with Notability on iPad.

Michael has been using Apple developer tools for programming ever since he learned how to code. He feels that they provided an effortless path into the fundamentals of coding.

“It was very simple to get up and running on a MacBook and Xcode. Everything’s intuitive, and it’s just standard across the industry,” says Michael.

While the Apple ecosystem laid the groundwork, it was an invitation to a hackathon that further ignited his passion for app development, turning his curiosity into a driving force. There, he created innovative projects while connecting with like-minded people.

In the hackathon community, Michael found a safe space to apply his Apple development skills and collaborate with others. Despite not coming from a technology background, he transformed from intimidated newcomer to confident app developer.

After years of seeing the Swift Student Challenge spotlighted in coding communities and online, Michael decided to enter the competition with his app, Pink, in 2024. His goal was to showcase an iOS app that was not only technically proficient but also personally meaningful.

He not only won the Swift Student Challenge but was also recognized as one of 50 Distinguished Winners and attended Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference — one of his goals since he began coding. Now studying for his master’s degree in computer science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, he hopes to continue creating tools that improve lives and inspire others in the tech community.