June 27, 2026 - Singapore
THE
FIRST
SPARK
FIRST
SPARK
Full-day symposium for Asia's student founders
Singapore's next generation of AI builders, founders, and operators starts here. Join a full-day symposium for students and young builders exploring how to build, work, and start up in the AI age.
SPEAKERS
Meet Our Speakers
Speaker
Thomas Jeng
Head of Startups APAC
OpenAI
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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.
Speaker
Mark Pereira
Head of Partnerships, Strategy & Growth (AI Products)
AI Singapore
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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.
Speaker
June Lee
Head of APAC and SVP, Social Impact
Workato
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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.
Speaker
See Ee Ling
Ex-Head of Product and Transformation,
Grab
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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.
Speaker
Joshua Wong
Founder & CEO
Hypotenuse AI
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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.
Speaker
Eugene Cheah
Co-founder & CEO
Featherless AI
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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.
Speaker
Jialu Zhong
Co-founder
HeyMax
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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.
Speaker
Yangshun Tay
Co-founder
Cliya AI & GreatFrontEnd
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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.
Speaker
Ivan Tung
Founder
Pragnition Labs (NCS)
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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.
Speaker
Austin Woon
Founding APAC Team & Software Engineer
Sierra AI
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Austin is a builder who has worked across public health, healthcare, fintech, and AI. He has helped bring 0→1 products to national and financial scale — supporting millions of Singaporeans during COVID-19, improving access to care across the public healthcare system, promoting active living, and enabling instant cross-border FX using stablecoins. He is now at Sierra, where he works with leading companies on AI agents for customer experience.
Speaker
Guan-ru Huang
Cloud Solutions Architect
Nebius
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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.
Speaker
Patrick Lim
CEO
ACE.SG
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Patrick Lim leads ACE.SG, the national voice for Singapore’s startup ecosystem, championing ecosystem building, global connectivity, and startup growth.
Speaker
Ee Ling Lim
Co-founder and CEO
Wavesparks
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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.
Speaker
Hongfei Xia
Investor
January Capital
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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
Meet our Sponsors and Partners
Why Join?
Build something real before symposium day.
Use the week to ship, sharpen, and submit an AI project for live feedback, pitch opportunities, and partner resources.
Get AI builder credits
All participants of TheFirst Spark Challenge get:
• $250 in OpenAI API credits and ChatGPT Pro for 3 months.
• 1-month ElevenLabs Creator tier (U.P. $22 / month)
Get feedback from experienced mentors
Use the sprint to get sharper on users, demos, product direction, and what to improve next.
Pitch on symposium day
Shortlisted teams may present live in front of students, founders, speakers, investors, and partners.
Win exciting prizes
1st Prize
• $25K worth of OpenAI credits.
• 3 months of ElevenLabs Pro per team member (worth $297 / team member)
• 3 months of ElevenLabs Pro per team member (worth $297 / team member)
2nd Prize
• $15K worth of OpenAI credits.
3rd Prize
• $10K worth of OpenAI credits.
Best Project Built With
• 6 months of ElevenLabs Scale per team member ($1,980 value / team member)
How It Works
1
Sign up on Luma
Register for TheFirst Spark on Luma and indicate that you want to join TheFirst Spark Challenge (7-day build sprint).
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2
Receive TheFirst Challenge info pack
Once your registration is confirmed, we'll send you the full brief, timeline, submission details, and builder resources.
3
Build from home
Use the week from 19-26 June to build, test, and polish your project, solo or as a team.
4
Submit by 25 June, 23:59
Submit your project through Devpost with: deck; GitHub repo, if available; 1-minute YouTube demo showing how your product works.
5
Get selected to pitch
Shortlisted teams will be invited to pitch live on symposium day.