Make friends.Build your own app in three days.
A free three-day program in Sydney for high school girls and gender-diverse students, including non-binary students. You’ll learn Swift, build your own app with mentors beside you, and leave ready to enter Apple’s Swift Student Challenge in early 2027.
Sydney · 12–14 January 2027Takes about five minutes. Sign up yourself: a parent or guardian only fills in a form if you’re offered a place.
Swift is the programming language used to create apps for Apple devices. You’ll leave with your own app playground: a small, working app that someone can explore in about three minutes. It’s the format the Swift Student Challenge asks for.
Each day follows the steps app designers use: find the problem, build and test, then polish.
Meet your crew, get comfortable in Swift and choose the problem your app will solve. Every good app solves a problem for someone. It might be at school, at home, in your community or in something you love doing. Sketch it on paper before you write any code. You’ll also hear from Swift developers about how they got started.
Build your app with mentors on the floor. Add your own drawings, photos, music, sounds and words. Swap with your crew, watch them use it and fix whatever trips them up.
Trim your app so it works in about three minutes and add the finishing touches. Show it at the Day 3 showcase, with feedback from a panel of Swift developers. You’ll leave with your project packaged and ready to submit.
We stay with you until your entry is in: online mentors, office hours and reminders when the Challenge opens.
Want to see what’s possible? Browse past Swift Student Challenge Distinguished Winners.
No experience needed.
Online sessions before the event and Day 1 get you from zero to building. Go at your own pace; no one gets left behind.
Been to SheHacksSwift before, or already coding? Go further.
Try machine learning, build for Apple Vision Pro, or take on a more ambitious design. Mentors will help you stretch, and you can move as fast as you like.
You don’t need any of this to sign up. Once you have a place, here’s how to arrive ready to build, not still installing.
It takes about five minutes. You can do it yourself. A parent or guardian only fills in a form if you’re offered a place.
Sign upDownload Swift Playground on your iPad or Mac, or Xcode on your Mac. Both are free. Xcode is a big download, so do it at home.
Start with App design, then App development.
Jot down things you’d like an app to fix. Bring the list on Day 1.
No coding experience needed, just curiosity and a problem you’d like to solve.
Sign upThree days of the school holidays in a room full of girl geeks: new friends, mentors beside you, and an app that’s yours by Thursday.
SheHacksSwift runs in the school holidays, so students miss no class time and there’s no excursion paperwork. It’s a three-day intensive that fits alongside a school Swift Coding Club, or helps start one. Our get-ready steps use Apple’s Develop in Swift tutorials, and Apple’s free Educator Guide walks teachers through the same tutorials.
Your child can sign up themselves. If they’re offered a place, you’ll get the consent forms to complete. Every mentor holds a Working With Children Check, and our online community is moderated by Girl Geek Academy.
Share this page with the girl geeks you know. For questions, or to bring SheHacksSwift to your school or city, email hello@girlgeekacademy.com.
Swift is the programming language used to create apps for Apple devices. With its clear and expressive syntax, you’ll be bringing your ideas to life in no time.
No. Online sessions before the event and Day 1 get you started. If you already code, you can go as far as you like.
A small app built in Swift Playground or Xcode that someone can explore in about three minutes. It’s the format the Swift Student Challenge asks for, so it’s what you’ll build.
You’ll leave with a working app playground and a plan for what to polish. You can keep improving it until the Challenge closes, with online mentors and office hours to help.
One Mac or iPad, your lunch and a willingness to learn. Swift Playground runs on Mac and iPad; Xcode needs a Mac.
Xcode includes AI coding help. Apple’s rules for the 2026 Challenge allowed AI tools as long as you explained how you used them. We’ll go through the 2027 rules with you when they’re out.
9:30am–4:00pm each day.
High school girls and gender-diverse students in Australia, including non-binary students, who’ll be 13 or older by February 2027.
Apple’s annual coding challenge for students: you build an app playground and submit it yourself. The 2027 Challenge opens in early 2027, and SheHacksSwift gets your entry started.
Yes. You’ll be in a crew of 4 to 6 for ideas, testing and demos. Swift Student Challenge entries are individual, though, so everyone builds and submits their own app playground. Mentors coach and explain. They can look things up with you, but they never type code into your project.
Not to sign up. You can do that yourself. If you’re offered a place, a parent or guardian completes the consent forms within 7 days to confirm it.
We stay with you until your entry is in: online mentors, office hours and reminders when the Challenge opens.
We need Swift and iOS developers to:
You’ll help girls shape an idea, test it with their crew and trim it to a three-minute app playground.
Mentors need a Working With Children Check (free for NSW volunteers) and join a one-hour online onboarding in December. Mentors coach and explain. They can look things up with a student, but they never type code into a student’s project.
Swift, the Swift logo, Xcode, Mac and iPad are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries and regions.
