Hello Forums.
You might recognize my name, I did do a bit of lurking around on here back in the earlier days of the competition. But for those of you who do not know me, I’ll reintroduce myself.
My name is Jonathan Ouyang. I am the developer of Jayu. I am a first year computer science major at UCLA, and I am the Winner of the Google Gemini API Developer Competition.
I am beyond honored that Jayu was selected as the overall winner, I honestly never thought in a million years that I would come this far, especially as a stupid 18 year old who hasn’t even started college yet at the time of this competition and was still facing industry veterans and even entire companies.
YouTube Demo Video: https://youtu.be/shnW3VerkiM
I have actually read every single message, and every single thread on this forum throughout the duration of the competition. I’ve always liked transparency in these kinds of things, and since I know how much you guys love stats, here’s some of the stats behind the scenes of the winning submission.
Timeline:
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Early June – I began the development of Jayu after procrastinating for 2 months
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August 4, 2024 – The first version of the demo video is assembled and reviewed by my friends
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August 6, 2024 – The eighth and final version of the demo video is assembled and reviewed by my friends, after nearly doubling the size of my review team
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August 10, 2024 – The official demo video is released on YouTube
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August 11, 2024, 10:40 AM PST – Jayu is Submitted via google form
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September 4, 2024 – Public Voting opens
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October 30, 2024 – Lloyd announces on forums that technology awards have already been decided, while the big 4 awards were still being deliberated
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November 14, 2024, 3 PM PST – Lloyd Hightower requested to connect with me on LinkedIn without any context
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November 18, 2024, 10 AM PST – Lloyd announces that “this week is the week” on forums
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November 18, 2024, 11 AM PST – Lloyd informs me on LinkedIn that I will be “contacted soon”
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November 18, 2024, 1:08 PM PST – I received confirmation that I have been selected as a potential winner of the “Best Overall App” in the Gemini API Developer Competition
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November 19, 2024, 1:13 PM PST – All forms and contracts are signed, and I am confirmed as the winner
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November 21, 2024 – Official Announcement by Google
Youtube Stats:
I did no extra advertising for this demo. All of the stats here is completely organic.
There appeared to be a spike on November 14, when Lloyd first reached out
Github:
I made sure that my github remained hidden, so that it was unlikely for others to find my code.
There is a notable spike in visits to my repository in the days before my final winning confirmation.
I will not be revealing the name of the repository, but I can confirm that there was unusually high traffic in all of the main files where the Gemini API was being called. They showed little interest in the other code. I can also confirm that there was traffic in my repository in the month prior to this, although I don’t know how to make GitHub show that. I’ve been stalking my statistics for a while now.
Final Notes:
I would like to thank all of my friends who painstakingly reviewed my demo video over and over again at my request. Thank you all, and I’m so sorry you had to go through so many rewatches.
I will do my best to respond to all questions or comments in the forums of this post, but if you would like a more direct way to contact me:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jon-ouyang/
Email: jonsouyang@ucla.edu
Please do NOT try to follow me on Instagram. That’s so weird. People have done it before.
Thank you all!
. Your app seems to have the strong “charisma” needed for winning the overall prize. The ability to create that charisma is something that I, for the lack of a better word, envy.
