STEI Student's Story of Winning Apple Scholarship to WWDC 2019
Jakarta – Since high school, Faza Fahleraz has never missed a live streaming keynote. Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC)But that tradition won't continue this year, as he will be attending the conference in person in the United States.
Faze had the opportunity to attend WWDC 2019 after receiving a scholarship from Apple. The iPhone maker regularly provides scholarships to talented students from around the world to attend its developer conference.
Seven Indonesians have received WWDC scholarships this year. They will travel to San Jose, California, to attend the keynote and other sessions.
Faza told detikINET how he secured the scholarship. He explained that Apple holds a WWDC scholarship program every year. Winning one isn't easy, as the competition is fierce.
Imagine thousands of students from around the world applying for this program, even though Apple only has 350 seats available. But everyone has an equal opportunity, as long as they can meet Apple's challenge.
 Faza Fahleraz (right) with Abram Perdanaputra Situmorang (left), Nicholas Rianto Putra (center), two other ITB students who received the 2019 WWDC scholarship. Photo: personal doc.
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"Every year there's a challenge for those who want to apply for scholarships. This year, we were asked to create something called a playground, a small application. We had to demonstrate our programming skills and creativity, make it interesting, and have a story," said the third-year Informatics Engineering student from ITB.
However, Apple only gives participants 10 days to complete the project. Furthermore, participants are required to write an essay about their profile, activities, and motivation.
Amidst his numerous college assignments, Faza attempted to complete Apple's challenge. The Bandung-born young man created a game similar to Snake on old Nokia phones that depicts the process of learning programming.
Three weeks later, in April, Apple announced the names of the scholarship recipients. Faza Fahleraz was among them.
"I'm so happy I've wanted to go to WWDC since high school, and now I have the chance to go, and Apple is paying for it," he said.
 Foto: dok. pribadi |
 Foto: dok. pribadi |
Tim Cook & Craig Federighi
Faza has made a number of preparations before departing for the United States. He has already begun selecting the WWDC sessions he will attend.
Machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) will be her primary focus. She will also attend sessions on application and interaction design.
"Why are you interested in AI and machine learning? I focused on that during college. I read articles about it that seemed really cool. I feel like AI and machine learning will be a huge part of the future," said Faza.
He hopes to meet two of his idols at WWDC: Apple CEO Tim Cook and Apple's Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi.
"I think they're both cool people, I want to take a photo together," said the second of three siblings.
Another hope expressed by Faza is that his trip will broaden his knowledge and meet people at Apple and other scholarship participants. This will allow him to expand his network and broaden his perspective.
"I hope to get to know scholarship winners from all over the world, I want to make more friends and share stories," Faza concluded.