What I Built: Naomi Quinones’s Practical Translation App

Naomi Quinones, an ESL instructor from California, was motivated to create a translation app after experiencing difficulties communicating with her students during the 2019 wildfires. With help from Twilio's Programmable Messaging API and Google Translate API, she built "Just Say In," an app that allows users to type in English and receive translations in multiple languages simultaneously. Quinones completed the app as part of a Techtonica apprenticeship program, which also helped her develop software engineering skills and community connections. Now, she uses the app to communicate with her students, particularly during the pandemic when it proved to be especially useful. Quinones plans to continue using programming to solve real-world problems, including developing an app that extracts information from medical research on ALS, a disease that affected her mother. She hopes to collaborate with others in the tech community and draw on their expertise to further develop her skills.