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
Guest of Honour
Ms Jasmin Lau
Minister of State
Ministry of Digital Development and Information
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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.
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
Rick Siow Mong Goh
Director of Computing and Intelligence
A*STAR Institute of High Performance Computing
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Associate Professor (Adj.) Rick Goh leads AI and computing innovation at A*STAR IHPC, driving breakthroughs that span healthcare, foundation models, and intelligent systems. A prolific researcher and ecosystem builder, he has translated cutting-edge AI research into real-world impact—advancing healthcare outcomes, nurturing talent, and shaping Singapore’s AI innovation landscape.
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
Sam Waldo
Head of Startups, Asia
Airwallex
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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.
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
Candice Ong
Investor, Tech Executive, Board Member
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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.
Speaker
Phuong Anh
Corporate Business Development & Ventures
Microsoft
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Phuong Anh Nguyen is a Senior Manager in Corporate Business Development and Ventures at Microsoft, working with founders, enterprises, and innovation ecosystems across APAC to accelerate emerging technologies. With 18+ years of experience, including roles at Microsoft, Amazon, Netflix, and Google, she has built strategic partnerships spanning cloud, AI, and digital platforms, helping organisations scale innovation and bring ideas to market. A builder at heart, Phuong Anh believes the strongest partnerships are created through curiosity, trust, and shared ambition.
Speaker
Belle Lim
Co-Head, APAC, Worldwide Private Capital, Microsoft
Microsoft
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Belle brings about deep experience across portfolio management, investor relations, and strategic business development, spanning the startup, accelerator, venture capital (VC), and tech ecosystems. Belle has recently stepped into a new role at Microsoft, where she works closely with leading VCs and ambitious founders across APAC. Belle graduated with a Bachelors of Psychology (with Honours) from the National University of Singapore, and is a member of Mensa Singapore.
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
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
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
Charles Wong
Co-founder and CEO
Bifrost AI
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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.
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
Jay Teo
Co-founder
First Prompt
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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.
Speaker
Siddharth Krishnan
Founder and CEO
The Robot Company
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Speaker
Daniel Ong
Founder
Menlo Research
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Speaker
Patrick Lim
CEO
ACE.SG
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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.
Speaker
Vincent Teyssier
Volunteer CEO
Better.SG Limited
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Better.SG is Singapore largest Tech for Good community, with over 3300 volunteers. We incubate our own community projects, we support other charities with their tech needs and we upskill our community with mentorship and masterclasses.
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
Darren Lee
Founding APAC Team & Agent Development Strategist
Sierra
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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.
Speaker
Shengen Lim
Chief Master Engineer, Lead Technologist
NTU Innovation and Entrepreneurship (NTU I&E)
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Lim Shengen is Lead Technologist at NTU’s Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, where he supports student founders and teams in moving ideas from concept to prototype, MVP, and real-world pilot. His work focuses on building pathways, spaces, and technical support systems that help students start building early.
Speaker
Sun Weiran
Startup AI Deployment Engineer
OpenAI
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Sun Weiran works at the intersection of AI and startups — engaging technically with top APAC founders to help them deploy and build with OpenAI's models. Before joining OpenAI, he spent over four years as a Senior Data Scientist at Boston Consulting Group, where he applied machine learning to complex business challenges across industries. Prior to that, he built data science solutions at NCS Group across public sector domains including transport optimisation and immigration resource planning, and began his career applying deep learning and NLP at Dentsu Aegis Network.
Speaker
Marcus Cheu
APAC BD Lead, Notion
Notion
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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.
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
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.
Organising Team
Organising Team
Organiser
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.
Organiser
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.
Organiser
Joshua Lim
Investor
January Capital
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Joshua is an Investor at January Capital. He is involved in the sourcing and execution of new investment opportunities, as well as portfolio management of the firm’s existing investments.
Organiser
Joie Ong
Marketing Lead
January Capital
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Joie is a Marketing Lead at January Capital, where she oversees brand, marketing, and community initiatives to strengthen founder support and ecosystem engagement for the firm.
Organiser
Kate Malabago
Program and Events Manager
Wavesparks
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Kate brings together a mix of event operations, marketing, and community leadership. In her current role at Wavesparks, she drives programming and events that support the next generation of young founders across Asia. Her background spans regional marketing at Saint-Gobain and Klingspor Asia, partnerships and communications at Aidha — a Singapore non-profit empowering migrant women through financial education — and nearly a decade of leadership roles across the Southeast Asian Service Leadership Network (SEALNet), where she led communications, logistics, and fundraising across youth programmes in Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines.