Inside a 24-Hour Cursor Vibe Coding Hackathon in Singapore

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the event had brought together people of all ages and levels of experience, including some serial hackathon winners and others that had never coded before.

Workshops run by volunteers and employees from companies like Cursor, Google’s DeepMind, and Groq showed participants how to use their tools to build fun and quirky apps.

The siblings told me they had been encouraged to take part in the event by their dad.

They were building an AI university guidance counselor that can help students pick high school subjects and decide college courses based on their skills.

Rach Pradhan, a recent college graduate who works at an AI startup, told me that he arrived at 11 a.m. and completed his project at 1:30 p.m.

Pradhan used Windsurf to build a tool that can help marketers ensure that their clients’ “voice” remains consistent across marketing campaigns and different social media platforms.

Hundreds of dollars worth of free tokens were also available from AI services such as DeepMind and Groq.

Pizza, burgers, and Teriyaki chicken bowls were on the menu.

People had crashed on the lecture hall floor and in the study spaces outside. There were blankets, sleeping bags, and pillows scattered around. One person had even brought an air mattress.

Many participants also carried a ziplock bag with their toothbrush and toothpaste.

Between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m., the organizers watched demo videos to shortlist the finalists. The projects were judged on technical quality, “polish,” execution, and “wow factor.”

The winning submission was an AI art generator that turns finger gestures into brushstrokes.

Imagine LinkedIn meets Hinge. RizzedIn built an AI tool that scrapes LinkedIn profiles and matches users based on their professional backgrounds.

After the event, organizers told me that most of the top 15 projects were from solo developers.

One hacker, whose teammate had flown in from the Netherlands to take part in the hackathon, said that he preferred to build alone or in a pair.

He said having four people on a team felt like having “too many” cooks in the kitchen because of how efficient coding tools have become.

After the awards, one organizer, Sherry Jiang, showed me her Fitbit, which said that she had slept just two hours the previous night.

She said she had spent most of her time ordering pizza and coffee, offering people codes for computer credits, and fielding questions from hundreds of stressed coders.