This September, Startup Weekend Singapore returned with a bang! SWSG Mega 2018 saw 43 teams graduate with some of the most unique and impactful ideas following the theme of this year’s hackathon — Open Innovation. The hackathon, supported by GovTech, brought together 30 mentors, 14 judges and 3 guest speakers — Dr Janil Puthucheary, Teo Ser Luck and Grace Fu.

During the Weekend

SWSG Mega 2018 kicked off on Friday evening, with over 300 participants checking in at the event site to collect their free goodie bags and lanyards indicating their title (Hustler, Developer, Designer) before heading to the main auditorium for their welcome reception.

As the evening progressed, it was time for the first pitch of the hackathon. The cohort was split into 2 groups — A and B, before interested participants proceeded to pitch their ideas to the floor. The teams were formed thereafter, adopting the top ideas with the highest votes.

As the night got older, some of the teams left to catch up on their sleep, while a good number stayed through the night to continue hacking away with their ideas.

Saturday was all about mentoring, workshops and hacking away! Some of the mentors who came down to help our participants include Sang Shin (Director, Temasek), Li Hongyi (Deputy Director, GovTech), Ng Jing Shen (Co-founder and CEO, Paktor) and many other experts in the industry!

The highlight of Saturday was the surprise appearance of a very special guest, Patrick Collison, Co-founder and CEO of Stripe! Patrick’s arrival came as a pleasant surprise to our participants who had no idea he would be coming down that night to share some of his personal tips with them. It is truly an honor to met this young prodigy and certainly our first time meeting a billionaire in the flesh! His concluding advice for our participants was to have fun and make the most out of their hackathon experience!