Maxwell Lou interned here at Quantropi this past summer and we truly benefited from the experience. Besides being professional and fun, Maxwell had some skills! He built out mobile apps in both iOS and Android to demo Quantropi’s SDK (Software Developer Kit) for QEEP™ – our ground-breaking, quantum-secure symmetric encryption solution.
We sat down with Maxwell before he left for a little fireside chat…
Tell us about your time at Quantropi?
Maxwell: This summer, I interned at Quantropi for a month because I wanted to gain some experience in the workplace, observe a startup and technology development environment, and learn how all the different parts of the company mesh together to deliver a single product. I’m lucky my dad was able to introduce me to a very welcoming team and even land me my first-ever contract.
What did you work on exactly?
Maxwell: As part of my contract, I was asked to create mobile applications, both Android and iOS, to demonstrate the QEEP™ SDK. These were delivered to a Quantropi partner who was building a quantum-secure messaging app. Quantropi’s QEEP™ solution (via the SDK) was being used as the app’s quantum-safe symmetric encryption, protecting its data from today’s threats and tomorrow’s quantum attacks.
Can you take us into the weeds a bit?
Maxwell: I first learned how to integrate C libraries into Android and iOS apps with the help of Damon. Then, I integrated the QEEP SDK, a C library, into an Android app using JNI (Java Native Interface), a framework that allows Java code to call native C libraries. I wrote this app in Kotlin, the new popular language for creating Android apps. Next, I integrated the QEEP SDK into an iOS app, which is much simpler since iOS apps are based on C rather than Java. I wrote this app in Swift, the new popular language for creating iOS apps. These apps exercised the SDK’s APIs, thus they are able to encode and decode messages given a pre-generated key. Since Quantropi’s messaging app partner used legacy languages (Java for Android and Objective C for iOS), I later translated both apps into Java and Objective C.
What did you get out of the whole experience?
Maxwell: I spent a lot of time during the month learning, as I had limited experience in creating Android and iOS apps. This was hugely beneficial to my education as I learned not only how to use the languages, but also how to structure them using best-practice coding principles. I also got to sit in on an executive meeting, a privilege I am very grateful for. I got to observe decision-making, problem-solving, and effective communications directly from the experts. Not only is this experience great for my resume, my work there also saved the engineering team some time and best of all, I got paid! The demo apps have since been completed and the QEEP™ SDK has been successfully integrated into the new messaging app.
Thanks Maxwell and good luck in the future!