The SDC 2016 event, which ran April 27 and 28 in San Francisco, was one more example of Samsung’s dedication to inspiring young people to learn more about coding. The company organizes Solve for Tomorrow competitions and Mobile App Academies around the world and participates in a variety of coding initiatives, like the EU Code Week in Europe. As coding has become recognized as the new literacy, Samsung has developed programs designed to foster lifelong skills like critical thinking, creative problem-solving and collaboration.

Student from the United States, Argentina, and Korea met with Dongjin Koh, the President of Mobile Communications Business at Samsung Electronics.

Attending SDC 2016 from the United States was Emily Waite, a 12^th-grade student from Massachusetts and one of the winners of the 2015 US Mobile App Academy. Emily created Med Kid, an app to incentivize children with serious illnesses to take their medications. Each time a child takes their medicine, they get an in-app reward, turning a serious and sometimes difficult task into a fun game.

From Korea, Young Jun Lee came to explain his mobile app Don’t Forget Me, which helps families manage their household plants together, like remembering the watering schedule and recording the plants’ growth history. Lee was just 12 years old when he won the first Junior Software Cup in Korea in 2015 for his creative app. More than 1,000 teams entered the 2015 competition, which asked young people to create apps under the theme of “family.”

Young Jun Lee, the winner of Junior Software Cup from Korea, explains the app he developed to other young coders from the United States and Argentina.

From Argentina, three middle-school winners of the 2014 Solve for Tomorrow competition came to present their winning project, an app for improving evacuation during flood emergencies.  Not only did Samsung think their app was a winner, so did their local government, which added it to the local Civil Defense system to help protect people when the local Lujan River floods.

A student on the Solve for Tomorrow Argentina Team explains their winning app to developers.

All told, Samsung has run a variety of Coding Initiative projects in 14 countries, with more than 690,000 students participating. The goal is to make young people creators of technology, not just consumers, so they can actively participate in shaping their own futures.

More than 350 11th and 12th grade high school students across the U.S. attended the free, five-day coding academies hosted by Samsung.

Student developers will stand alongside professionals at the Samsung Developer Conference in San Francisco today. The students, chosen from the five winners of the 2015 Samsung Mobile App Academy, made apps to address issues in their local communities. Winning apps include an interactive pill chart to incentivize children with serious illness to take their medication, a system for diagnosing pulmonary illnesses and a game to teach kids coding.

A summer program held at universities across the country, Samsung Mobile App Academy offers students in grades 11 and 12 the opportunity to learn coding from actual developers and create a marketable app of their own. The goal is to help the students develop the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) skills critical to careers in the digital age. Participants are asked to focus their apps in one of four categories: health, education, environment and community investment/sustainability.

The five winners of the 2015 Samsung Mobile App Academy will be announced at the conference. They are:

1. Emily Waite, a senior at Franklin High School in Franklin, Mass., won the Grand Prize, including a $20,000 scholarship, for her app Med Kid, which helps children who are seriously ill take their medications accurately.
2. Maya Varma, a senior at Presentation High School in San Jose, Calif., won Second Prize, including a $10,000 scholarship, for her app iBreathe, which helps diagnose early five prevalent pulmonary illnesses.
3. Quymbee Chen, a senior at Bronx High School of Science in Bronx, NY, won Third Prize, including a $5,000 scholarship, for her app Code Clash, a game for kids to learn code.
4. Gayathri Sridhar, senior at Evergreen Valley High School in San Jose, Calif., won Fourth Prize, including a $1,000 scholarship, for her app Forte, which helps teens cope with depression.
5. Noa Schwartz, a senior at Brookline High School in Brookline, Mass., won Fifth Prize, including a $500 scholarship, for her app Connexercise, designed to reinvent the workout experience.

Emily Waite of Franklin, Mass. is the Grand Prize Winner and recipient of a $20,000 scholarship for the app she created at Samsung’s 2015 Mobile App Academy that uses incentives to get kids suffering from illness to take their medications. Emily Waite of Franklin, Mass. is the Grand Prize Winner and recipient of a $20,000 scholarship for the app she created at Samsung’s 2015 Mobile App Academy that uses incentives to get kids suffering from illness to take their medications.

In the Zone at the Conference

Grand Prize winner Emily Waite and Third Prize winner Quymbee Chen will present their apps to attendees at the third annual Samsung Developer Conference at the Moscone Center in San Francisco on April 27 and 28. This year’s conference focuses on the Internet of Things, the interoperability between devices and applications, and virtual reality. Samsung Mobile App Academy winners will be stationed in the Innovator Zone on the showroom floor, with other talented students who participated in similar Samsung programs in regions around the world. The students also will meet Samsung professionals who develop software for a living, giving them the opportunity to meet leaders in STEM fields and likeminded innovators.

Waite got the idea for her digital pill chart from watching her cousin and friend, both with serious illnesses, have to take a lot of medication at the one time. “For my app, I wanted to create a fun way to incentivize children to take their medications,” said Waite. App users receive icon gifts when they take their medicine as well as complete doctor visits. Waite recently decided she will attend Cornell University in the fall and major in mechanical engineering.

Chen chose to make education the focus for her app, as she enjoys tutoring middle school students in computer science. She said: “I wanted to design an app that teaches kids how to code, but I wanted it to be fun, so I modeled it after a popular cartoon. The app trainer pushes the users to improve, while teaching them about computer science topics in ways kids can relate to.”

All five winners participated in the 2015 Samsung Mobile App Academy, attended by a total of 350 students nationwide. The program, which is free and attended by students who are required to go through an application process, lasted five days and focused on a custom coding curriculum. Last summer, Samsung Mobile App Academy programs were held at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts; University of California Berkeley in Berkeley, California; Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey; Rice University in Houston, Texas; University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland; and University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida.

“These students are well on their way to mastering the art of app creation. They have shown their forward-thinking and creativity through their projects. We are excited to have them at our annual Samsung Developer Conference in recognition of their enthusiasm for STEM and for making a difference in the lives of people around them,” said Ann Woo, senior director of Corporate Citizenship at Samsung Electronics America.

For more than a decade, Samsung’s Hope for Children initiative has been focused on helping youth in underserved communities across the United States gain access to quality healthcare, technology resources and STEM education. In addition to Samsung Mobile App Academy, which started in 2011, the company also supports STEM education through other national programs, including the Solve for Tomorrow contest.

Learn more about the Samsung Developers Conference at http://news.samsung.com/us/press-kits/sdc2016.