Indian student does a Donald Trump; asks 'How are you Tim Apple?' in a meet with Cook

As Delhi-based student Palash Taneja came face to face with Apple CEO Tim Cook, along with 13 global students in California, it was surely a fanboy moment for him. But, what followed had the audience into splits. Pop came a "How are you Tim Apple" at Cook and before he could answer everyone burst into laughter. The reply from Apple CEO was a wisecrack. "Yes, I am good and aware of what you mean to convey," said Cook in light banter.

The Apple CEO met bright young coders from across the globe and Palash was the only one representing India at the meet.

His jocular question draws parallel with US President Donald Trump's abstractedly addressing Cook as "Tim Apple" at a conference in March this year. The Apple CEO also later changed his Twitter name to "Tim Apple" as well as replaced his surname with the company logo, which went viral on social media.

Palash who is 18 years old, recently finished school and is currently on a gap year before he moves to the University of Texas at Austin. He also presented a new Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) based project to Cook.

"I showed him my project where the neural language processing (NLP) based algorithms can change the language of a YouTube video as you watch it, say from English to Hindi," Palash told IANS.

The young student added that utilising AI and ML to break the language barrier and providing language accessibility is the focal point of his idea. "My algorithms can translate nearly 50 languages on the go. The idea is to make rich and useful content accessible to all," Palash said.

Cook who also wants coding to become the second language at schools commended Palash's idea and said that he hopes for it becoming a success.

Palash's motivation for coding came from his father who he observed working on Excel sheets and saw the visual charts. He created a website app to manage hospital beds (Uber for hospital beds). This idea struck him after he suffered from dengue fever when he was in class 10 and found it difficult to find a bed in a hospital. Palash created a tool that forecasts dengue fever outbreaks through ML, which got 3,000 page views a month during outbreaks.

He also developed another app called 'Scholarship' which creates music from dance moves. This application according to Palash is an educational app designed for people who want to combine learning music with rhythm.

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