Inside a 24-hour ‘vibe coding’ hackathon–here are my biggest takeaways

I like to spend most weekends taking exercise classes with friends, exploring new restaurants, or curling up on the couch watching a movie. But this past weekend was unique. Instead of the usual routine, I chose to immerse myself in a 24-hour “Biological Programming” hackathon.

I attended one of the largest in-person hackathons ever in Singapore, which was Sponsored and supported by heavyweight artificial intelligence companies From around the world including OpenAI, Cursor, Anthropic, Google DeepMind and more.

The event was held on campus from approximately 9 a.m. Saturday to noon Sunday. More than 400 people participated in the course, from highly experienced engineers to beginners. The goal was simple: build something from scratch with the help of artificial intelligence.

“Use your imagination. Build something disruptive. Build something weird,” said Agrim Singh, one of the event’s organizers and co-founder of Niyam AI.

Many teams have taken this advice to heart.

Some notable projects have included F**Yu.AI, an AI-powered productivity app that “pushes you to greatness,” by calling users on their mobile phones to yell at them to complete tasks, and Residena dating site that helps connect “career-minded individuals.”

By the end of the weekend, about 150 projects had been submitted. the winner — an AI-powered whiteboard tool that allows users to draw using only their hand movements tracked by a webcam — has won prizes worth more than S$50,000 (about $39,000).

The second and third place winners created Human Speed ​​vs. Artificial Intelligence game and Netflix Corporate Training, which makes compliance training videos more engaging for employees.

We bonded over a shared desire to preserve the heritage of our ancestors. So we built Legacy – A digital time capsule that can be used to capture and store family stories and recipes, so that they can be passed down to future generations.

We spent all day Saturday working on turning our idea into a product. Some of us stayed up all night working on the project – while others (me) unfortunately didn’t have the stamina to do so.

When I returned to campus on Sunday morning, I saw people sleeping on chairs, on the floor, and just about everywhere, while others were still making last-minute edits before submitting their projects for judging.

An estimated 70 people stayed overnight to work on their project, said Sheri Jiang, one of the event organizers and co-founder of fintech app Peek.

“We were trying to do a little counting…and we found people in random lecture halls. It was the funniest thing.” [thing] “It was like catching wild Pokemon,” Jiang said.

Richard Lee, who created a habit coaching app European Together with his teammate Amanda Lau Chernin, he only slept for half an hour on the floor of the auditorium. He has prior development experience and knows programming languages ​​such as Python and SQL.

When asked why he chose to join the hackathon, he said: “I took it as a personal challenge [what] This can actually be done within 24 hours. [and to] “Look how far spirited programming has come,” he told me. I also thought it would be a great place to get inspiration.

“It’s like a gathering of builders… who are not just learning, but learning,” Lee added. “It’s almost like training for a startup, right? Effectively, you just have to focus and get something done.”

By the end of the weekend, Lee says that even though the hackathon was only 24 hours long, he felt like he had “improved his skills dramatically.”

Fellow organizer Singh agreed, writing on LinkedIn mail “The hackathon scene in Singapore has lost its soul.”

Singh, who has been attending hackathons since 2013, notes that such events are used to lure hackers and builders into making “something that works,” rather than “boards, sponsorship kits, or photo shoots.”

“Now? Most AI events here seem hollow. Panels by people who have never touched the technology. ‘Thought leadership’ has no practical weight. People pretend to build, or worse, get revenue from hype without caring about the ecosystem,” he wrote.