TikTok Supports Singapore & Southeast Asia's Talent in its First Multi-Market Hackathon

TikTok held the grand finals of its 2024 TikTok TechJam programme on 8 August in Singapore, concluding its first-ever multi-market hackathon for tertiary students. The hackathon brought together 102 student teams from universities across Singapore and Southeast Asia to break boundaries in tech, unleash creativity, and showcase their coding skills by building solutions for challenges that businesses are facing today.

As Singapore operates as one of TikTok's global talent hubs for tech and engineering, the platform is committed to actively nurturing the future of local and regional tech talent to prepare for advancements in technology. Participating teams were tasked with identifying how technology can address existing and emerging challenges that businesses face today, such as privacy protection, payment security, AI-led content creation, hyper-personalised shopping experiences, and more. The programme also involved a series of technical workshops, including a guest lecture on AI in collaboration with AI Singapore (AISG). These efforts underscore TikTok's commitment to supporting Singapore's overall vision of becoming a global AI and innovation hub.

Emerging as the top team, Ete, a group of four students from Singapore, took home the grand cash prize of US$10,000. Their solution, AnonymousAds, was developed to allow companies to deliver relevant and targeted advertising using encrypted user data, addressing social media platforms' conundrum of balancing profits with user privacy. The list of winners was followed by HoneyBadgers, who developed the Honey Badger Sales Helper, an assistant for sales agents, and AiSL, a duo that created an AI-powered tool that enhances TikTok's content creation experience for deaf creators by automatically generating captions, voice-overs and emojis for videos with sign language.

In light of this success, TikTok aims to uplift the future leaders of the tech industry by fostering their growth through such initiatives including mentorship programmes, hands-on workshops, and opportunities that offer real-world experience and encourage innovative ideas.

"TikTok TechJam exemplifies our commitment to cultivating the next generation of tech innovators. By focusing on the development of creative, real-world business solutions, this programme not only equips students with critical industry skills but also ignites a deeper passion for technology. We believe it will prepare them to lead and excel in a rapidly evolving digital landscape. Each and every single team showcased outstanding projects, and we are excited to see how their ingenuity will shape the future of tech in Singapore and Southeast Asia," said Teresa Tan, Director of Public Policy, TikTok, Singapore and ASEAN.

Launched in June, the 2024 TikTok TechJam Hackathon ran across key office locations in Singapore, San Jose and Sydney, and was extended to students from partner universities across Southeast Asia to encourage knowledge exchange.

To access and download photos from the grand finals, please proceed here.

Here is the full list of winners from the 2024 TikTok TechJam grand finals in Singapore:

1st place: Ete.
2nd place: HoneyBadgers.
3rd place: AiSL.
4th place: EzSeek.
5th place: ByteMe.

People's Choice Award (three recipients):
SnapSynch.
Lockerism.
Signify.

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