Meet the 17-year-old wonder kid who started coding at 7 and presented her app to Tim Cook last year. Now she's headed to NASA.

Angelina Tsuboi, 17, has achieved more than she ever thought possible

Graduating high school

Many will not in their lifetime.

The teenager, who has been

Code

Since she was 7, and has a vast knowledge of 18 programming languages, including her own, this young woman has made an impact in the world of software. She's created numerous apps and won the Student Swift Challenge during Apple's annual

Worldwide Developers Conference

The World Wide Development Conference (WWDC), which took place last year, was a major event.

Tsuboi, who is a pilot as well, has already used her software skills to make the aviation sector more accessible

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She is aiming for a career in mechatronics - a field that combines computer science, electrical and mechanical engineering. She also has a keen interest in analog astronautics, which is essentially playing the role of an astronaut in a virtual space environment.

Entrepreneur

Tsuboi was interviewed to learn about the inspiration for her early success, her experiences at WWDC 2022, and her future plans.

"Whenever I see a world problem...I try to solve it."

Tsuboi gets her first taste

Programming

In a school class, she created her first program at the age of seven. She recalls that her first program was a very basic maze game. "And I kept developing projects from there."

Tsuboi is always motivated by "the amount of impact that applications can have on the global community." He has worked on projects that are based on this principle.

Address real issues

People face.

Tsuboi says, "Whenever I notice a problem, especially one that is prevalent in my life, I look for a solution." "I have an engineer-like mindset. I don't get complacent when I see a challenge. I'm always looking for ways to act."

Lilac is one of the apps that grew from this.

solution-oriented

Change for the better

The app offers single parents up-to date resources, such as housing organizations, grant opportunities, job openings, and translation assistance -- something Tsuboi wished had been available when her mother, who was a single parent, moved from Japan to the U.S. with three children, and "had many problems with the language barriers."

Tsuboi, who struggled with the "really inconvenient" search for scholarship funding to pay for expensive flight training, developed her Pilot Fast Track app, which assists aspiring pilots to find scholarships to finance their training. The app is used by thousands of people today.

Tsuboi took Tsuboi the same

problem-solving

She put her mentality to work in the development of CPR Buddy. It was the winner of last year's Swift Student Challenge.

CPR Buddy was created as a complement to Pocket CPR, an app she had made for Apple Watch. It all stemmed from her online CPR course.

Tsuboi explains that "learning CPR online is a bit challenging because there are certain things which are very tactile when learning CPR. For example, compression rate." It's difficult to grasp the concept of compression rate when taking online CPR courses. So I was,

How can I create a tool to make learning CPR easier and more accessible?

"

Tsuboi Turned to

Apple Watch

The haptic feedback function of the Apple Watch makes tactile learning possible. Vibrations and visual animations are used to teach basic CPR techniques, including hands-only or hands-and-breath. Apple Watch hardware limitations were one of the greatest challenges. Tsuboi warns that adding a lot animations and vibrating sounds can overload the device. She overcame this by running a lot of the code in the background.

Tsuboi is one of six Swift Student Challenge Winners invited to attend the event.

Apple

The headquarters of the last WWDC

She was able to attend presentations that announced the new hardware and software of the company and participate in live one-on-one sessions with other developers.

Tsuboi says, "It was great to meet people and connect with them. It's not easy to find people in the software community because it is such a small, niche group. At WWDC, almost everyone is familiar with Apple products and software.

Tsuboi, the other winners and Apple Park were gathered to discuss their app submissions. Then they received the surprise of a lifetime.

Apple CEO

himself.

We see

Tim Cook

Tsuboi explains, "We saw a man walking along the Apple Park trail and heading toward us." "That was absolutely mind-blowing." We all sit down next to him, and present our apps and discuss our app-development experience. It was amazing to be able to meet Apple's CEO and talk with him about our efforts to impact the world.

Tsuboi is excited about the future and plans to use her software-development skills to tackle real-world problems.

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Expand your business into other areas

"I'm going to delve a bit deeper into

Cybersecurity

Tsuboi adds, "I enjoy the niche of aerospace cybersecurity. It is an exciting field. It's fast-paced and exciting, so that's why I got into it.

Tsuboi also builds cybersecurity programs for avionics on planes. She has created a device that can be used to detect and prevent cyber attacks.

Außerdem

To detect spoofing and hacking of radar systems on airplanes. She's also built a new program, which is a satellite cybersecurity system.

Tsuboi is working for the summer at

NASA

She will focus on developing aerospace cybersecurity projects

She has also "delved a little into mechatronics," because she wants to become a mechatronics engineering when she grows up.

Tsuboi's interest in mechatronics is drawn by its multidisciplinary approach. She explains that she enjoys having a multidisciplinary skill set, which helps her to see problems from a new perspective. This is rare in the engineering world, where people tend to stick with one area.

She's currently working on a low-cost, open-source buoy device to detect tsunamis.

Tsuboi says that there are tsunami detection buoys, but they're expensive and huge. "I'm currently building a buoy that is less than $200.

Tsuboi aims to make devices more accessible for researchers in underprivileged areas.

Tsuboi may be a high school graduate with a lot of achievements, but she is also thinking about college, just like most teenagers.

MIT

She says that although she has long wished to attend this school, she is keeping all options open.

Tsuboi says, "I am not 100 percent set on it as it is really difficult to get in." "I'm going to continue my professional projects regardless. My career path is going to be a bit different. I will still be developing software. "I have two apps in development so software will still be part of my work, but I will be focusing more on mechatronics, analog astronautics, and mechatronics."

Amanda Breen writes features for Entrepreneur.com.