27 June 2026 - Singapore · Recap
TheFirst
Spark
Full-day symposium for Asia's student founders
Singapore's next generation of AI builders, founders, and operators came together on 27 June for a full day exploring how to build, work, and start up in the AI age. 300+ students, founders, and operators joined us — here's how it went
What Went On
See how student founders spent a day building in the AI age.
TheFirst Spark brought together students, founders, operators, investors, and ecosystem partners for a full day of demos, debates, panels, office hours, and networking — designed to show students what's possible, what to build next, and who can help them move faster.
What We Saw
We watched teams from the Young Founders Summit cohort pitch their strongest builds, then closed the day with our Build Sprint's top 10 finalists showing off what they'd shipped in just a week. OpenAI's Sun Weiran even built something live on stage in 10 minutes, unscripted.
What We Learned
Leaders from Microsoft, Grab, and Workato got real about how AI is reshaping hiring and product decisions from the inside, while founders from Hypotenuse AI, Featherless AI, and Bifrost AI broke down what it actually takes to build AI-native products right now.
What We Picked Up
From AI Singapore, ACE.SG, A*STAR, and NTU, we mapped out exactly where the grants, accelerator support, and research pathways are for student builders.
What We Explored
The room got loud for Panel 3, a live debate on whether students should join a big firm first and build credentials or jump into building their own startup now. The audience voted before and after, and surprisingly, the "Build your own startup now" side moved the most minds. Career advice has never felt less theoretical.
Who We Met
Founder spotlights from HeyMax, The Robot Company, and Menlo Research took us behind the scenes of what building actually looks like day to day. It felt electric closing out the night with the Shippers' Dinner where our build sprint participants and winners came to celebrate.
Speakers
The 22 speakers who joined us
Ms Jasmin Lau
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Ms Jasmin Lau is currently the Minister of State in the Ministry of Digital Development and Information and the Ministry of Education. She is also the Minister-in-charge of the Government Technology Agency (GovTech) which builds tech for public good and supports public agencies’ efforts in driving digital transformation. Ms Lau is a Member of Parliament for Ang Mo Kio GRC and oversees the Seletar-Serangoon Division. She is passionate about supporting residents in need and strengthening community health for her residents. She also serves as the Vice-Chairperson of the Ang Mo Kio Town Council. Before entering politics, Ms Lau spent almost 20 years in the public service. She previously served as Deputy Secretary (Policy) at the Ministry of Health from 2022 to 2025, where she oversaw the development of healthcare finance, manpower and regulatory policy. From 2019 to 2021, she served as the founding Executive Director of the Singapore Global Network in the Economic Development Board.
Guan-ru Huang
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Guan-ru is a Cloud Solutions Architect at Nebius, bringing over seven years of experience across cloud infrastructure, DevOps, and backend engineering. Before joining Nebius, he spent nearly three years at Ataya as a Software Engineer working across backend systems built on Golang, and prior to that served as a DevOps Engineer at Hewlett Packard Enterprise specialising in cloud and hybrid cloud consulting.
Thomas Jeng
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Thomas Jeng is part of OpenAI’s go-to-market team, leading startup and venture capital relationships across Asia-Pacific. He has held leadership roles at Aspire and 500 Global, and has experience driving growth at early-stage startups like Gnowbe. Thomas started his career in strategy consulting at BCG and Gartner and is active as an investor and mentor in the region.
Jialu Zhong
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Jialu is one of the cofounders of HeyMax, where she channels her experience from Big Tech and entrepreneurship to create innovative solutions in the travel and loyalty rewards space. She is passionate about designing user-facing products that address real-world problems and make daily life easier for everyone. Whether simplifying complex systems or creating intuitive tools, she thrives on building solutions that connect with users and provide meaningful value, especially in this AI era.
Marcus Cheu
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Marcus is a founding member of Notion's APAC team, having joined the team after being a Notion Ambassador previously. He has a wide range of experience from big tech firms like Salesforce to running his own startup.
June Lee
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June Lee is a senior technology executive with over 30 years of experience driving growth, customer success, and regional expansion across Asia Pacific. As SVP Social Impact and Head of Asia Pacific at Workato, June leads both the company’s APAC business strategy and its philanthropic initiatives, a dual mandate that reflects her belief that commercial leadership and meaningful impact go hand in hand. Known for her ability to navigate complex markets and build high-performing teams, June has spent her career helping enterprise organizations harness technology to unlock new opportunities. At Workato, she works with some of the region’s most ambitious companies as they move from operational complexity to digital agility, powered by AI and automation. June is a recognized leader in the enterprise technology space and a champion for purposeful, people-first growth across APAC.
Sam Waldo
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Sam leads Airwallex's startup segment across Asia, helping founders move money across borders as they build and expand globally. He joined Airwallex after nearly a decade as a founder himself across fintech, non-profit, and e-commerce, and he was named to Forbes 30 Under 30.
See Ee Ling
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During her 11 years at Grab, Ee Ling has traversed multiple roles including launching and scaling the private hire car business in Malaysia and Singapore; serving as Chief of Staff to both founders; leading IPO readiness, PMI and transformation efforts; and most recently, leading Product Strategy, Product Operations, Consumer Experiences and Platforms. She’s currently on sabbatical but enjoys advising and problem solving with founders, execs and next-gen leaders when she’s not tending to her 7 year old boss at home.
Candice Ong
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Candice helped build Zalora and then ShopBack into one of the region’s biggest shopping apps. She then moved into investing as COO and partner at Xora Innovation, a fund that backs startups built on hard science and frontier tech. Today she invests in early-stage companies and sits on a few boards, including Pick Network and ACE.
Joshua Wong
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Joshua Wong is the founder and CEO of Hypotenuse AI, an AI-native platform for enterprise ecommerce companies. Previously an AI researcher at Amazon Alexa/Shopping and a University of Cambridge computer science graduate, he has been recognized by Forbes 30 Under 30, Tatler Gen.T, and Prestige 40 under 40.
Yangshun Tay
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Yangshun Tay is the founder of Cliya AI, an agentic creative platform. Previously Staff Engineer at Meta, he led the development of meta.com and created Docusaurus 2, one of Meta's most popular open source projects. These days, he's exploring the intersection of AI, frontend engineering, and design.
Eugene Cheah
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Eugene is the founder of Featherless.ai — home to the world's largest collection of AI models accessible through a single API — and a core contributor to RWKV, an open-source foundation model under the Linux Foundation. A veteran of Singapore's tech scene, Eugene has shipped across startups, banks, and insurance firms, and is the creator of GPU.JS, one of the most widely used open-source GPU compute libraries in the JavaScript ecosystem.
Mark Pereira
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Mark Pereira is the Head of Partnerships, Strategy & Growth for AI Singapore (AI Products). He spearheads the partnerships and GTM strategy for the SEA-LION initiative, developing open-source Large Language Models (LLMs) that better understand Southeast Asia’s diverse contexts, languages, and cultures. His role drives the adoption and value creation of AI solutions, fostering partnerships and positioning Singapore as a global AI hub in multicultural AI development. He focuses on delivering hyper-local nuance understanding and impact in key sectors across Southeast Asia.
Charles Wong
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Charles Wong is co-founder and CEO of Bifrost AI, where he's building the data engine that teaches AI and robots to understand the physical world. Bifrost generates physically accurate 3D worlds so machines can learn new objects, tasks, and environments in hours instead of months. The company is backed by Airbus Ventures, Peak XV's Surge, Wavemaker, and Techstars, and works with partners like NASA JPL on data for Moon and Mars exploration.
Vincent Teyssier
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Vincent Teyssier is Volunteer CEO at Better.SG Limited. Better.SG is Singapore’s largest Tech for Good community, with over 3300 volunteers. We incubate our own community projects, support other charities with their tech needs, and upskill our community with mentorship and masterclasses.
Ivan Tung
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Ivan is currently building Pragnition Labs, a team of cracked people that works with NCS to make Singapore AI-native. Pragnition Labs sit with the people doing the actual work, learn what wastes their time, and ship products built on frontier AI research to large enterprises and government agencies across Singapore.
Jay Teo
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Jay Teo is a GTM architect scaling AI capabilities and commercialisation in APAC across startups, enterprises, and governments, working with foundational model labs and upcoming frontier startups.
Darren Lee
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Darren is the Founding Agent Strategist at Sierra’s APAC office, where he partners large enterprises to transform customer experience using AI agents. Previously as part of BCG’s TMT practice, he built GENie, the firm’s proprietary AI agent platform and scaled it to dozens of enterprises and millions of customers globally. He focuses on the intersection between AI, strategy and deployment and holds a degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Yale-NUS.
Patrick Lim
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Patrick has served as CEO of ACE.SG since October 2023. With over 20 years of experience in public service, he brings a solid track record in a diverse portfolio from industry and ecosystem development, policy formulation, and venture building. As a member of the pioneer secretariat team, Patrick played a foundational role in driving Singapore’s national entrepreneurship movement. His early leadership was instrumental in key milestones, including the corporatisation of ACE.SG and the strategic development of JTC LaunchPad@one-north.
Imane Jamal Eddine
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Imane Jamal Eddine is a GM and Head of Sales at Microsoft, where she leads the Digital Natives business across Asia, spanning ASEAN, ANZ, Japan, and Korea. She partners with the region’s fastest-growing startups and scale-ups, helping them innovate, build, and scale globally using cloud and AI. With a strong focus on AI-native companies, Imane works closely with founders and leadership teams to unlock growth, enter new markets, and co-create transformative solutions across industries including financial services, healthcare, and retail. Beyond her role at Microsoft, Imane is deeply committed to empowering the next generation of leaders. She is the founder of Lean In Women in Tech Singapore, where she champions diversity and supports women navigating careers in technology—especially in the rapidly evolving AI era. She is also the host of the podcast Coffee with Imane, Leaders of Change, where she highlights inspiring voices shaping the future of business and innovation.
Ee Ling Lim
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Ee Ling Lim is a global ecosystem builder and the former Head of Market Launch at 500 Global, where she led teams to scale over 65 startup accelerator programs across Israel, Canada, Egypt, Asia, and beyond. Recognised as one of Singapore’s Top 100 Women in Tech and a Bett Asia EdTech 10 honouree, Ee Ling also shapes future generations as a council member for Singapore’s National Youth Council and National Youth Fund.
Hongfei Xia
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Hongfei is an Investor at January Capital. Hongfei is a senior member of January Capital’s venture capital investment team, and is responsible for sourcing new opportunities, with a particular focus on software. Prior to joining January Capital, Hongfei began his career in investment banking at Bank of America, later moving to Silver Lake as a Principal focused on late-stage technology. Most recently, he served as the Corporate Development Lead for Google, where he oversaw M&A and growth investments across the Asia-Pacific region.
Sponsors and Partners
Our 21 sponsors and partners
Symposium details
WHAT THE DAY LOOKED LIKE
Build Sprint
TheFirst Spark Challenge — Results
TheFirst Spark Challenge was the 7-day public Build Sprint that preceded the symposium. From 19–25 June, students built AI products from home, solo or in teams, and submitted for a chance to pitch live on stage.
How It Went
Built Something Real
Teams used the week to ship, sharpen, and submit an AI project — with live feedback, pitch opportunities, and partner resources along the way.
AI Builder Credits
- All Build Sprint participants received $250 in OpenAI API credits and ChatGPT Pro for 3 months.
- Plus 1 month of ElevenLabs Creator tier (normally $22/month).
Feedback From Experienced Mentors
Teams used the sprint to get sharper on users, demos, product direction, and what to improve next.
Pitched Live On Symposium Day
Shortlisted teams pitched live in front of 300+ students, founders, speakers, investors, and partners.
Prizes Awarded
- $25K worth of OpenAI credits.
- 3 months of ElevenLabs Pro tier per team member (worth $297/team member).
- $15K worth of OpenAI credits.
- $10K worth of OpenAI credits.
- 6 months of ElevenLabs Scale tier per team member ($1980 value/team member).
Meet the Winners
Personal Practise Intelligence
Personal Practice Intelligence helps small architecture, engineering, and construction practices and design students preserve the design judgment behind their reference images by turning captured moments into reviewable, private memories with an agentic artificial intelligence teammate.
Team: Adib Zailan
View submissionAdvanced Sourcing Agent
Advanced Sourcing Agent helps hardware engineers and manufacturers land better suppliers and prices by deploying artificial intelligence agents that vet suppliers, negotiate, and deliver final quotations within a week.
Team: Yusuf Razak, Chang Yao Chai
View submissionSunday
Sunday helps visually impaired, elderly, and motor-impaired smartphone users complete everyday tasks independently by giving them a voice-first artificial intelligence agent that reads the screen and performs the actions for them.
Team: Rajaselvam K
View submissionSilverArch
SilverArch helps social service officers respond to after-hours citizen crises with full context by using a multilingual, voice-first assistant that turns each call into an officer-ready case packet.
Team: Yong Wei, Zhikai Koh, Danvern Poo
View submissionEvent Highlights
Highlights from the day












FAQs
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the event free?
Yes. Both the Build Sprint and the symposium were free to join.
Who won TheFirst Spark Challenge 2026?
- 1st ($25K) — Adib Zailan, Personal Practise Intelligence
- 2nd ($15K) — Yusuf Razak and Chang Yao Chai, Advanced Sourcing Agent
- 3rd ($10K) — Rajaselvam K, Sunday
- Best with ElevenLabs — Yong Wei, Zhikai Koh, and Danvern Poo, SilverArch
Contact Us
Need more info or want to collaborate on a similar event?
Email us at letsbuild@wavesparks.co and we'll get back to you as soon as we can!