Programming is her way to help promote Chinese traditional folk art amid COVID-19 pandemic, Yu Tielin, a Chinese high school student who won Apple's 2020 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC20) Swift Student Challenge, said on Saturday.

Apple's WWDC20 was held from June 22 to 26 in a virtual format. Among a global community of developers, there were 350 Swift Student Challenge winners from 41 different countries and regions attending the event. The students were chosen based on their original Swift playground submission, part of Apple's annual WWDC student challenge, which recognizes and celebrates the next generation of coders and creators.

"It's really a pity that I couldn't communicate with other winners in person at this year's WWDC because of the pandemic. I will continue to use my programming skills to solve more problems, and hopefully to participate in building a better future," Yu told Xinhua.

She attended a virtual meetup for a dozen of Swift Student Challenge winners during the WWDC20 and shared her thoughts on the work.

In the playground Yu designed, the players will get various patterns of paper-cut, and choose one they love to get a complete paper-cut. After they cut the paper, they can click on the AR to place the paper-cut on the windows or walls around them virtually.

"The idea of this playground was born after a recent trip to my grandparents' village, seeing lots of beautiful paper-cut artwork there. I wanted to preserve this culture, modernize it, and encourage more people to learn about it," Yu said.

"During the pandemic, my school's paper-cut club activities had to stop. This can also be a good way to help people learn, share and communicate from homes," she added.

This year, the young programmers focused their effort mainly in three categories: environment, health, and home life, according to Yu.

"It is the first time I met the winners from all over the world in a virtual way, I can feel they shared the same creativity and passion for programming. What impressed me most is the strong sense of social responsibility from our works," she noted.

She said the meetup made her more determined to develop new apps. "The true meaning of developing an app lies in how it impacts our world."

"This year's WWDC20 student developers are creating apps that do incredible things... Amazing to see how they're dreaming big and changing the world," said Apple CEO Tim Cook after a drop-by to the meetup.