Le Nhat Hoang, 22 years old, won Apple’s Swift Student Challenge software competition and was invited to meet CEO Tim Cook in the US at WWDC 2026.
Nhat Hoang, a student at Hanoi University of Science and Technology, became the first Vietnamese student to be invited to Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) after being named one of the 50 Distinguished Winners in the Swift Student Challenge 2026. He was selected from 350 winners worldwide and attended WWDC at Apple Park in California from June 8 to 12, where he met Apple CEO Tim Cook.
Hoang won the competition with HumMelody, an app that records melodies hummed by users and converts them into MIDI notes. The music can then be played back using different instruments such as piano, guitar, violin, or flute.
An unexpected ticket to America
Hoang received the competition results by email on March 27 and was surprised to learn that he had not only won but also ranked among the top 50 Distinguished Winners. Although he had followed the Swift Student Challenge for more than five years, he entered the competition this year simply to challenge himself and did not expect such a result.
“Mom, I’m going to America!” Hoàng recounted the first thing he said to his mother when she has just arrived home. In the same evening, he eagerly researched the activities he would experience in America, searching for suitable flight information to send to the organizers even though he didn’t yet have a US passport or visa.
An Application: A “Bridge” for Music-Love Soul
He developed HumMelody in just three weeks. The app uses pitch-detection algorithms to recognize melodies in real time and convert them into MIDI notes. It also includes a visual editor that allows users to move, edit, or delete notes easily before playing the music with different instruments.
The app was built entirely in Swift using Apple’s development frameworks without third-party libraries. Although software engineering is his specialty rather than audio technology, Hoang said he used AI and consulted solutions from professional applications such as GarageBand, Logic Pro, and FL Studio to improve the melody-conversion algorithm. He believes the app’s core functions are complete but plans to further improve note segmentation and chord recognition.
Attending WWDC 2026, meeting CEO Tim Cook
After attending WWDC 2026, Hoang said he was proud not only to join the event but also to see Vietnam receive greater international attention through images of Hanoi, Vietnamese pho, and Apple’s support for the Vietnamese language in Apple Intelligence.
Meeting both Apple CEO Tim Cook and the company’s new CEO John Ternus was an unforgettable experience, he said.
Hoang believes Apple’s ecosystem offers great opportunities for young Vietnamese developers and recommends Swift as the best programming language for anyone interested in building apps for Apple platforms.
He plans to complete his final year at Hanoi University of Science and Technology while continuing to develop new projects. Winning the competition has strengthened his confidence in pursuing a career as a professional app developer.