10-year-old Bay Area boy is youngest app developer at Apple's WWDC

MENLO PARK, Calif. -- The youngest app developer at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is a 10-year-old boy from Menlo Park.

Ayush Kumar describes himself as an "enthusiastic coder who likes new things."

The bright young boy followed his dad's direction, ahead of WWDC in San Jose.

The task-- take 10 days to create an app and submit it to Apple for a chance at the company's scholarship program.

The big challenge-- participants have to be 13 years or older to enter.

"I told Ayush, 'Look, this is a great opportunity. Let's base a project on whatever it is you want to do, and submit it to Apple and see what happens," the boy's father, Amit Kumar, told ABC7 News.

Apple made an exception, and Ayush was able to attend the conference on a student scholarship.

"I designed my app off of a catapult by looking at the trajectories and learning about the parabola, that's like the arch of the catapult projectile. I learned all about that, and I incorporated that all in my app," Ayush explained.

His app is still in review, not yet available on the App Store.

His interest in tech started when he was just three-years-old. He said coding started at four through an app developed by MIT.

These were major tech milestones, even with managed screen time.

"He only gets 30-minutes of screen time on a daily basis," Amit said. "And if he wants to program, that's where that goes."

On weekends, Ayush gets a few more hours of screen time. It's time he uses to create, develop and code.

"I access it all through my laptop, mostly, and my iPad," he said. "I don't have a phone yet."

Amit explained Ayush had some challenges, prior to getting the student scholarship. Program participants were given a 10-day guideline, which meant Ayush only had two weekends to complete the task, with limited screen time.

"If we knew that he could get selected, I would've given him more time," Amit said. "But for us, this was just a fun project."

Ayush's parents are also in tech. Amit says he's an entrepreneur. He explained he started and sold two companies, one to Nerd Wallet, the other to Yahoo. He is now working on a third.

When Ayush isn't buried in his coding, he's bringing on the noise.

ABC7 News toured Ayush's combined home office and playroom. After the interview, he brought out his guitar and showed us his skills.

"I like playing the guitar," he said. "I like to play a lot of Imagine Dragons songs."

There is no shortage of talent when it comes to this 10-year-old, future tech titan.

"He has been really interested in programming and coding, and to be able to go as a developer to an event, not as a sidekick to dad, is pretty amazing," Amit said about his son.

He added, "The fact that I've been a proud dad predates the WWDC for about eight or nine years."

"This is his day. This is what he wants to do today," Amit said. "We'll see what he does in ten years."

"I would like to design a car, and design the technology for a car," Ayush said. "Or start up a new car business. Or I would design mobile apps, or apps just in general."