Locked out of hair salons by the coronavirus pandemic, Simmi Sen was looking for a way to provide her style-conscious middle school friends with a new ‘do. So what she did was put her coding skills to work, creating an app that earned a call from Apple.
Simmi, a 14-year-old rising ninth grader from Vancouver, Wash., is one of 350 winners of the Swift Student Challenge, Apple’s annual competition for student developers. Her recognition among kids from 41 different countries was part of the run-up to the tech giant’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference, held virtually this week.
Simmi is also GeekWire’s Junior Geek of the Month for June, a new honor presented by Northern Trust, which recognizes talented young innovators, creators and entrepreneurs in the Pacific Northwest.
A math whiz who started coding in the sixth grade after joining her school’s LEGO robotics club, Simmi is into everything from art to running to Rubik’s Cube.
“I’m a STEM kid. At school I’m pretty well rounded, but I excel at math,” Simmi said, adding that she was taking pre-calculus in the eighth grade and when she moves on to Skyview High School, she’s excited to be able to take computer science classes.
She did a lot of Googling and watched a bunch of tutorials on YouTube to learn how to build her app, called Eliza Virtual Hair Assistant. The tool uses a selfie image that is run through a segmentation model, which turns the subject’s hair a different color by creating colorized overlays.
“I had this friend who dyed her hair and she absolutely hated how it looked,” Simmi said. “I felt really bad for because maybe if she saw how she looked in this color, maybe she wouldn’t have dyed it. So this app was meant for people like her.”
Simmi was totally surprised when she heard from Apple and even though WWDC was a virtual event this year she hoped to be able to connect and make some new friends among the other students.
Simmi did make friends when she spent the summer in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 2018, joining her neighbor Dr. Beverly Questad on a trip to help teach English and computer literacy to young girls.
The girls at an orphanage were fascinated by computers and were delighted just to see a machine turn on.
“When I turned on the computer they would get so surprised at how the mouse was moving and little things like that,” Simmi said. “I taught the younger girls how to make a presentation and put pictures from the internet on their presentation. The older girls, I taught them how to code using block code and they really enjoyed that.”
Simmi’s other big passion is solving Rubik’s Cubes. During a video chat with GeekWire, she picked up the familiar 3×3 puzzle from her desk and eyeballed the scrambled colors.
“Let me inspect the Cube and come up with the optimal solution,” she said, pausing a couple seconds. “OK, I think I have a good solution.”
Roughly 10 seconds later she held up the completed cube. That’s an impressive time considering the world record is around 4 seconds, and Simmi’s personal best is 8.12 seconds. She started competing a couple years ago and in her first tournament finished last with a time of 55 seconds. She was the only girl among 120 competitors.
“I thought I was super fast; all my friends said I was fast,” Simmi said. She kept at it and improved her finger dexterity and understanding of the algorithms necessary for solving the puzzle. She started a Rubik’s Cube club at her school that attracted 20 other students.
“It’s super relaxing,” Simmi said. “I want to motivate more girls to solve the Rubik’s Cube.”
Simmi’s not sure yet about future plans or what she’ll study in college, but she figures coding will be part of it. She has an artistic side and runs her own T-shirt design business called Tints. She’s trying to learn a lot about business and likes to practice pitching to VCs and angel investors.
“What I’m trying to do right now is learn a lot about everything,” Simmi said. “I like hanging out with my mom and dad. I like talking to them. They don’t know how to code so it’s nice talking to them about other things.”
Nominate a Junior Geek
GeekWire will feature a new Junior Geek of the Month in profiles meant to capture how they are looking to make a positive impact on the world through their geeky pursuits. In addition, they’ll receive special recognition from our project partner, Northern Trust.
Do you know an exceptional Junior Geek between the ages of 12 to 20 who is going to change the world? Submit a nomination.
Nominees must be residents of the Pacific Northwest, and parental information must be included for those nominees under the age of 18. Jr. Geeks may nominate themselves but please be sure to include your parent or guardian’s contact information.
