A group of four students from Diocesan Girls’ School (DGS) won in the secondary school category and was awarded the grand prize at the Appjamming Summit (AJS), an international mobile app design competition, on March 17.
The final round of the competition was held at D2 Place Two in Lai Chi Kok.
Among the 235 submissions from 20 countries and regions, 12 primary and 10 secondary teams made it to the final. They consisted of students from different countries, including Japan and Indonesia, aged between eight and 16.
All finalists presented their apps to the judging panel. They were evaluated on presentation skills, ideas, designs and functionality.
The winning team from DGS designed an app called Language Pop that used pop songs to teach different languages.
So far, they have incorporated Mandarin, Japanese, and Korean into the app.
With Mandarin, for example, the students created three levels of difficulty. On level one, the app taught users about the consonant sounds of Mandarin words from Mandarin pop song lyrics. Then, the vowels and the pronunciation of Mandarin song lyrics were taught on level two and three respectively.
“Through these exercises, we hope the app will improve users’ speaking skills in foreign languages,” said Ada Song Xiuxuan, 16, one of the developers of Language Pop.
Selina Kwok Hiu-lam, 16, another member of the group, said the biggest significance of the app was that it could help people appreciate other cultures. “Through listening to pop songs from other places, we can be exposed to their way of life.”
“In Hong Kong, I feel like we don’t open ourselves up to other cultures enough. So this app can really bring people together and promote cultural diversity,” Selina added.
The team will be sponsored to attend the App Inventor Summit in Boston in the United States, in August, and a coding study tour in Silicon Valley, America’s famous technology centre, where they will also have the opportunity to meet staff from Facebook, Google, and Microsoft.