Apple CEO Tim Cook today visited the Mall at Millenia Apple Store in Orlando, Florida, where he met up with 16-year-old Liam Rosenfeld, one of the WWDC scholars who will be attending Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference this June.
Cook was in Florida for an event that saw SAP and Apple announce an expanded partnership focused on new enterprise apps taking advantage of technologies like machine learning and AR. Cook apparently visited the Apple Store after the conference. According to the Orlando Sentinel, Cook had a short chat with Rosenfeld, who called the meeting "an amazing surprise."
Rosenfeld runs a coding club at his high school, and he's created an app that converts images into ASCII, plus he has two additional apps in the works. Cook said that the teenager had impressed him.
"He has a quality that I think is on a short list of characteristics that drive success, and that is curiosity," said Cook, after talking with Liam about the creation of the coding club.
Cook went on to say that WWDC scholarships provide Apple with a way to contribute to the growing need for a tech workforce.
"You need public, private, non-governmental organizations working together because this is not a trivial transformation that needs to happen here," he said. "We have an obligation. We are fortunate to have had some success."
Apple offered 350 scholarships to students and STEM organization members for WWDC 2019. Each scholarship includes a free WWDC ticket, free accommodations in San Jose, California, near the McEnery Convention Center, and a free one-year membership to Apple's developer program.
Thrilled to meet the talented @liamrosenfeld in Orlando today. He’s got a bright future ahead. See you at #WWDC19, Liam! https://t.co/aOOSJbtFjC — Tim Cook (@tim_cook) May 7, 2019
Top Rated Comments
[doublepost=1557273696][/doublepost]Yup. Cook does this actually regularly (And around the world), and has been in my area many times. That’s how it should be, the CEO should be meeting at a local level with his employees and customer base, it shows the CEO is not someone that can’t be approachable, that’s what I like about Tim Cook, as he appears very genuine.
Cool to see Cook pop in to Apple Stores around America!
Jobs used to stop in the Palo Alto store quite a bit when he was CEO