AI innovation in action: The inaugural Sea x OpenAI Regional Codex Hackathon kicks off in Singapore

ON June 6, 40 teams of tech builders and developers gathered at the Shopee building in Singapore’s Science Park Drive. The agenda? Creating real-world AI applications using Codex, OpenAI’s coding agent.

At the kick-off of the inaugural Sea x OpenAI Regional Codex Hackathon in Singapore, teams worked against the clock to turn ideas into working prototypes. Discussions ranged from product design and user experience to technical considerations such as model performance, deployment challenges and data privacy.

More than 1,200 applications were received, which were about eight times the available spots, and 40 teams comprising 144 participants were ultimately shortlisted. This strong response is an indication of the interest among developers and builders in working with frontier AI tools.

Building South-east Asia’s AI ecosystem

The Sea x OpenAI Regional Codex Hackathon series is a joint collaboration between the two companies. The Singapore event also marks the first time OpenAI has partnered with a company on a regional hackathon initiative in the Asia Pacific, with the series expanding to Indonesia, Vietnam, Taiwan and Malaysia in the months ahead.

Founded in Singapore, Sea has established itself as the global technology company behind Shopee, Garena and Monee. OpenAI, meanwhile, is the research and deployment company behind ChatGPT. The two coming together reflects a broader commitment to encourage the development of South-east Asia’s growing AI ecosystem.

During the one-day hackathon, the participants had to work on projects anchored on three main areas:

• Autonomous and adaptive AI: Agents that can be trusted to operate without constant human oversight
• AI-native products and operations: AI as the core feature of products and solutions, instead of being an add-on
• Deep domain AI: Building AI solutions for specific industries to address concrete needs

Developing AI solutions with Codex

The event kicked off at 9:30am, with opening remarks from the three guests of honour: David Chen, co-founder of Sea and chief product officer at Shopee, Oliver Jay, managing director, International, at OpenAI, and Thibault Sottiaux, head of Codex at OpenAI who joined virtually.

“Today’s hackathon is not only about building demos. It is about helping every team to think about how we should build things in the new AI era,” said Chen in his speech. “It is about experimenting fast. It is about iterating fast. And ultimately, we want to build an AI-native culture in the builders in Singapore and across South-east Asia.”

This was followed by a short demonstration of Codex, which gave participants a look at how it worked and how they could use it in their projects. Throughout the day, OpenAI experts were on hand to provide technical guidance, answer questions and help participants navigate challenges as they built their solutions using the platform.

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The final stretch before submissions closed proved especially demanding, with teams refining demonstrations, troubleshooting technical issues and preparing their pitches for the judging panel.

Once the projects were submitted at 5pm, the judges began their work, assessing the teams based on the following metrics:

• Problem framing
• Quality of build
• Insight and originality
• Real-world value
• Alignment with the three areas of focus
• How effectively Codex was leveraged in the build process

The judging took place across two rounds. The first ran concurrently with dinner, where the teams took turns to present their solutions to a panel of judges, made up of representatives from Sea and OpenAI.

Some of the builds included a cycling route planner that personalises routes based on rider preferences, a “pre-check” solution to prevent AI agents from deploying erroneously, and a tool to create content optimised for AI search.

The judges went beyond the presentations and demos and also evaluated the builds at a deeper level. Alongside the above criteria, the panel examined how teams handled technical trade-offs such as latency, their approach to data privacy and their thoughts on how the solutions could develop beyond the hackathon.

The winning AI builds

Once the first round was done, the judges convened to make their decision on which five teams would go on to the finals.

The five finalists then went up on stage to showcase their solutions to the panel.

Third place went to Team Techbros, which developed an AI co-host for live selling that could answer questions and moderate the chat. What made it stand out was its ability to learn. For example, if the host answered a question from a viewer about the product warranty, it would retain this information and be able to answer on the host’s behalf if the same question was asked later on.

In second place was Team TripCanvas, which built an AI-driven solution to plan a travel itinerary based on Instagram Reels or TikTok videos. On top of that, the platform could make flight and hotel recommendations and even make and pay for bookings.

The grand prize went to Team Untitled.ai. They built a product called Evoloop, which is a model for training game AI. If you have ever played against “the computer” in a video game, Evoloop’s solution enables the computer to learn and adapt as it plays, making it a more effective competitor.

Evoloop is unique as it is a white box solution – developers can actually see what changes were made to the code as the AI evolved. This is a capability that could make the tech applicable to other sectors, such as finance.

“One of the most encouraging outcomes of this hackathon was seeing the creativity and problem-solving spirit of Singapore’s developer community firsthand,” shared Sea’s Chen. “The event demonstrated how AI can help address real-world challenges when combined with a deep understanding of user needs.”

The top five teams received a one-year subscription to ChatGPT Pro. As the grand winner, Team Untitled.ai walked away with US$30,000 (S$39,000) in OpenAI credits, with Team TripCanvas and Team Techbros receiving US$15,000 and US$5,000 in credits, respectively.

Overall, the event was an insightful look into just what the region is capable of building. 

“As AI continues to shape the digital economy, it is important that builders have opportunities to learn, collaborate, and experiment with emerging technologies,” said Chen. “Together with OpenAI, we hope initiatives like this can bring the developer community closer together, inspire new ideas, and enable more people to create solutions that make a meaningful impact.”

The Sea x OpenAI Regional Codex Hackathon series aims to support AI innovation and developer communities across the Asia Pacific, with upcoming editions in Indonesia, Vietnam, Taiwan and Malaysia in the months ahead.

Watch the highlights from its inaugural edition here.

This article was first published in Tech in Asia.