'Driven' Estero High School graduate behind app development company

Editor’s note: This is one in a series of Naples Daily News stories on Graduates of Distinction, who are selected by staff at the high school. 

If John Ciocca is not preparing pizzas or scooping ice cream in his family’s Bonita Springs cafe, he is likely working on Ciocca Apps, his burgeoning app development company.

“It’s most of my time,” Ciocca said. “Whenever I’m home, it’s typically what I’m doing.”

The 18-year-old Estero High School graduate has created 35 apps, and his programming skills are entirely self-taught.

He has developed a program that keeps track of money, an app that draws 3-D models, and games you can play on your smartphone.

More:2018 Graduates of Distinction

But Ciocca said his best ideas come from problems he finds in the world around him. Those ideas tend to focus on improving the lives of people with special needs, like his older brother Christian, who has Down syndrome.

Ciocca first learned coding skills in 2012 when he lived in New Jersey.

His family moved to Bonita Springs in 2015, and he began attending Estero High School as a sophomore.

Over the last three years, Ciocca said he has been involved in the school’s National Honor Society, Engineering Club and Key Club, a community service group.

He also helped start a Southwest Florida chapter of Fantastic Friends, a social group for people with special needs.

But Ciocca said his app development has been a large part of his high school experience.

He launched MyVoice - Tap or Type to Talk, which helps those who have challenges with verbal communication. The app has been downloaded 600 times, Ciocca said.

It’s based on the Picture Exchange Communication System that involve books with photos and words a person can arrange to form a sentence.

MyVoice speeds up the process, allowing users to communicate with a few taps on pictures in the app or the typing of a phrase, Ciocca said.

The app earned Ciocca a 2018 silver Edison Award last month for communication enhancement.

The Edison Awards are an annual product innovation competition. Ciocca competed against Bose Headphones, which won the gold award in his category.

“When I got the email, I was at school,” he said. “I read it, walked over to my teacher and was like, ‘Read this.’ I guess I won.”

He calls the award his proudest high school achievement.

Ciocca also developed youBelong, a social network, like Facebook, for people with special needs.

“That came after we moved down here from New Jersey,” Ciocca said. “It allowed (my brother Christian) to connect with the friends he left and meet new kids around here.”  

Ciocca is constantly working on his app portfolio, which includes tech support, communicating with users, updating old apps and working on new projects, he said.

Stephen Fisher, an engineering teacher at Estero High School, has seen Ciocca’s work ethic and programming skills firsthand.

Fisher has taught Ciocca in engineering and robotics classes at Estero High School over the last three years.

“There is a drive to him where he is going to be one of the really successful people we will hear about,” Fisher said. “But by his personality, you wouldn’t really know it. He is so down to earth and driven. It blows me away.”

Ciocca said his high school experience has taught him to continue doing what he loves and to keep going when things aren’t easy.

“Something usually works out in the end,” he said.

He will take that philosophy with him to Florida Polytechnic University in Lakeland, where he plans to study computer engineering.

Before that, he will attend the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in June, where he will get one-on-one time with Apple engineers.

He has been there before and met tech figures like Apple CEO Tim Cook and the creators of the game "Angry Birds."

In the future, Ciocca said he wants to be a startup founder and that he is on his way with his company, Ciocca Apps.

“I want to take it bigger,” he said.