安薇塔?維賈伊（Anvitha Vijay）7歲時有一個夢想，那就是開發一款移動應用。看著存錢罐里僅有的130美元（這是她“一輩子”的積蓄），她意識到自己沒有足夠的錢來聘請開發人員。于是，她花了一年時間在YouTube和其他網站上觀看免費的編程教學課程，居然學會了。

如今的維賈伊又長大了兩歲，她表示：“編程非常具有挑戰性，我很高興我堅持了下來。”

今年，住在澳大利亞的維賈伊又實現了另一個夢想。她成為了蘋果一年一度全球開發者大會（WWDC）最年輕的參加者。與許多與會者一樣，維賈伊為蘋果的iPhone和iPad開發了一些應用。然而，與其他數千名于本周一前去舊金山莫斯康展覽中心（Moscone Center）的開發者最大的不同在于，維賈伊今年只有9歲。

維賈伊是通過蘋果的獎學金項目參加全球開發者大會的。該項目為全球各地給蘋果設備開發應用的人提供了數百張免費門票。今年的獎學金獲得者里，18歲以下的人數為歷年之最，背景也是歷年來最為多元化的一次。350名獎學金獲得者中，有120名是18歲以下的學生。來自科學、技術、工程和數學機構的申請者人數增加了215%。

在今年，申請獎學金的女性人數增長了兩倍，有22%的獎學金獲得者為女性，這一比例較之去年也有所提高。

蘋果正在努力讓全球開發者大會的參與者變得多元化。像大多數科技會議一樣，該會議目前的參與者主要是白人男性和亞洲男性。瑟古德?馬歇爾大學基金會（Thurgood Marshall College Fund）的項目副主席斯科特?利萊表示，蘋果去年聯系了他的機構，提供了參加全球開發者大會的獎學金。他說：“我認為他們正在努力確保多元化。”在今年的項目中，利萊讓兩名非裔美國女學生和三名非裔美國男學生參加了全球開發者大會。去年，他只有三個學生的名額。

Coalition for Queens是一家致力于在紐約皇后區向居民傳授專業技能的非盈利機構。創始人許居逵表示，今年他們送出了四名優秀的參會者，而去年是兩名。許居逵說，所有的參會者都是女性或是有色人種。

維賈伊本人是印度裔，她開發的應用都是供兒童使用的。維賈伊的靈感來自她那蹣跚學步，并且正在學習說話和辨認動物的妹妹。她的第一款作品是Smartkins Animals。該應用會通過聲音和抽認卡，幫助兒童識別100種不同動物的名字和聲音。隨后，她又開發了另一款類似的互動iOS應用，幫助兒童辨認顏色。

維賈伊已經開發了兩款應用

描繪開發iOS應用的過程時，維賈伊不像是一個九歲的孩子，更像是一名程序員。她解釋道：“把想法轉化成應用需要大量艱苦的工作。打造一款應用需要經過許多步驟，包括原型制作、線框繪制、用戶界面設計，然后是編碼和測試。”

她已經在著手開發下一個應用了，這個應用旨在幫助她的同齡人設立目標。

維賈伊通過網絡申請了全球開發者大會的獎學金。她會與父母和妹妹一起，從她的家鄉澳大利亞墨爾本乘坐飛機跨越幾千英里來到舊金山灣區。

維賈伊表示：“參加全球開發者大會，見到蒂姆?庫克是我的夢想。”

譯者：嚴匡正

Seven-year-old Anvitha Vijay had a dream of building a mobile app. With only $130 in her piggy bank (which took her entire lifetime to collect), she realized that she didn’t have enough money to pay a developer to build the app for her. So she spent a year watching free coding tutorials on YouTube and the web, and learned how to program.

“Coding was so challenging,” Vijay said, now two years older. “But I’m so glad I stuck with it.”

This year, Vijay, who lives in Australia is fulfilling another dream of hers. She is the youngest attendee at WWDC, Apple’s annual developer conference. Like many of her fellow attendees, Vijay has created a handful of apps for Apple’s iPhone and iPad. But the biggest difference between her and the thousands of other developers who will flock San Francisco’s Moscone Center on Monday is that Vijay is now only nine years-old.

Vijay is attending WWDC as part of Apple’s scholarship program, which gives hundreds of free tickets to developers from around the world who are creating apps for Apple devices. This year’s group of recipients saw the most winners under the age of 18, and a more diverse crowd than years past. Out of 350 recipients, 120 of the lucky winners are students under the age of 18. Submissions increased by 215% more than doubled from organizations focused on science, technology, engineering, and math.

The number of women who applied for the scholarship tripled this year, and this year, 22% of scholarship winners are women, which is an increase from last year.

Apple has been making a bigger effort to diversify WWDC, which like most tech conferences, has been overwhelmingly attended by white and Asian males. Scott Lilly, who is vice president of programs at the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, said that Apple approached his organization to offer scholarships to WWDC last year. “I think they are making sure that diversity is represented,” Lilly said. Under that program this year, Lilly is sending two female African American college students and three African American men to WWDC. Last year, Lilly was only able to send three students.

Coalition for Queens, a nonprofit organization that works to help teach technical skills to Queens residents in New York City, is sending four aspiring developers to WWDC this your through the program, said founder Jukay Hsu, compared to two participants last year. Hsu said all the attendees are women and or people of color.

For Vijay, who is of Indian descent, developing apps is about empowering children. Vijay’s apps were inspired by her toddler sister, who was learning how to talk and identify animals. Her brainchild was the Smartkins Animals app, which uses sounds, and flashcards to help teach children 100 different animals’ names and sounds. She then developed another similar interactive iOS app for children to help them learn colors.

When describing the process of developing an iOS app, Vijay sounds more like a programmer than a nine year old. “Turning an idea for an app involves a lot of hard work,” Vijay explained. “There are so many components to building an app, including prototyping, design and wirreframing, user interface design and then coding and testing.”

She’s already working on her next app, which wants to help kids her won age with setting goals.

Vijay applied for a scholarship for WWDC by applying online. As for her trip to WWDC, Vijay will travel thousands of miles from her hometown in Melbourne, Australia to the Bay Area with her parents and sister.

“It’s my dream to go to WWDC and meet Tim Cook,” Vjay said.