20-year-old IIT-ian earns global recognition at the WWDC 2025 Swift Student Challenge

Gaurav Kukreja doesn’t fit your typical profile of an app developer. The 20-year old Biological Sciences and Bioengineering student entering his final year at IIT Kanpur was one of the 50 top Distinguished Winners who were invited to attend the annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) at Apple’s headquarters in California where, over the course of the last week, student developers had the opportunity to deep dive into labs sessions with Apple platform experts and learn from the other developers…and each other.

An app developer’s story to global recognition, from IIT to WWDC

Held under the aegis of the Swift Student Challenge each year at WWDC, the recognition is more than just a contest for student app developers – it is a launchpad for future technologists, with top submissions not only winning rich global recognition but also real-world engineering exposure, mentorship and a peer network of other students globally. Along the sidelines of the WWDC event, Indulge met up with Gaurav as he demoed his app, ResQ to Apple CEO Tim Cook, and walked through a journey that will certainly serve to inspire many other students in India.

Hailing from Faridabad in the National Capital Region, Gaurav’s journey to Cupertino started a few years ago when he started coding in the C programming language, before quickly moving onto web and app development.

Alongside his schedule at IIT-K, Gaurav started picking up on Swift through self-study and online courses, and his interest in biology and technology, not to forget him having witnessed first-hand instances of epileptic seizure and alcohol poisoning on his campus, drove much of the inspiration behind his app, ResQ. Speaking of which, the app was built, in true collegiate style, on heavy doses of caffeine-powered all-nighters (and skipped classes!), thinking up and designing the app in 13 days flat in time for the WWDC evaluation deadlines.

To the ResQ

As the name suggests, Gaurav’s app submission is aimed at rescue scenarios, where the goal is to provide people with quick, clear, and potentially life-saving information in emergency situations. Featuring an intuitive list-based interface with clearly labelled categories - breathing/airway emergencies, cardiac/circulatory emergencies, wounds and bleeding, burns and temperature, poisoning and overdose, shock and seizures, and diabetic - ResQ draws on verified data/first aid techniques from the National Health Service (NHS) website, citing sources on each page to deliver reliable, authentic information.

Each emergency scenario has step-by-step instructions on how to perform first aid, including when to dial emergency services first before proceeding - the app helpfully dials out the global emergency services number. Each step is aided by helpful visuals and haptics-enhanced animations to help with specific scenarios like cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to indicate what pace at which you should perform chest compressions.

What stood out for me was the panic mode, a voice-guided mode that showed a clear understanding of how people react (mostly, under stress) in emergencies and require the ability to be hands-free when performing emergency response for specific cases like CPR and heart attacks. Or for that matter, what not to do – like not trying to suck or cut the poison (venom) out of a snake bite – yes, that urban legend, portrayed in many movies …is a myth!

Demoing the app to Tim Cook, Gaurav outlined future plans of integrating healthcare-compliant AI models into the app to understand symptoms and provide intelligent responses…or suggest dialling out local healthcare services if deemed necessary.

Cook commended Gaurav as being representative of young developers across India, many of whom are creating apps with enormous potential to make a meaningful impact in their communities and beyond, and brought out the ways that initiatives like the Bengaluru-based Apple Developer Center can help support these budding developers. With ResQ, Cook lauded Gaurav for “making vital information available and approachable when users need it most… it’s inspiring to see Gaurav use his talents in service of others, and I can’t wait to see what he does next.”