Youth-led innovation in smart city and education take the spotlight at Tech4City 2025

Teams from National University of Singapore (NUS) and ITE College Central emerged as winners at the fourth edition of Huawei’s Tech4City Competition.

The tech hackathon was targeted at youths and featured two tracks: Budding Youths track for students and young innovators from ages 16 to 22, and Onwards Entrepreneurship track for university students and startups with market-ready prototypes.

Guided by the theme Empowering Our Shared Digital Future, startups and students submitted over 120 proposals focusing on smart healthcare, smart education, and smart city.

For the Budding Youths track, the first prize went to Team Coolnected from ITE College Central for their project, Interconnected Community Fridge.

For the Onwards Entrepreneurship track, Team Remarkably from NUS won first prize for their artificial intelligence (AI)-powered essay feedback platform for teachers and instructors.

Six finalists from both tracks presented their solutions to the panel of judges during the Finals ceremony held on 28 November.

Since its inception, Tech4City has gathered over 1,000 participants who worked on over 300 innovative technology-driven ideas for social good in Singapore.

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Driving impact through innovation

The winners noted that Huawei’s mentorship and technical training provided throughout the competition were key drivers in achieving real-world impact with their ideas.

The message to turn ideas to impact was echoed by the Guest of Honour, Speaker of the Parliament, Seah Kian Peng, who encouraged participants to “keep dreaming boldly, building bravely, and pushing boundaries. The future belongs to those who imagine it and then get to work."

Through Huawei’s ICT Academy, participants were encouraged to pursue Huawei certifications in cloud computing, 5G, AI, and information technology.

“There are checking with mentors, training sessions, and a whole process where we see ourselves growing to eventually reach the point where we can showcase our project right now, that’s the most fulfilling part,” said Remarkably’s team leader, Harry Wu, at the event.

Remarkably’s AI-powered essay feedback platform aimed to close the feedback loop between students and teachers through high-quality and timely feedback.

This equipped teachers with tools that augment their capacity by reducing heavy marking loads.

“Winning the Tech4City 2025 competition is an honour and a validation of our efforts to reduce the administrative burden on teachers by streamlining the grading process, especially with such steep competition this year.

“With Remarkably, we envision a future where personalised academic support is scalable and accessible to all students,” shared Wu.

The S$20,000 funding would allow the team to scale their solution to provide trial sessions for teachers and instructors and continue developing features for additional subjects, noted Wu.

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The Onwards Entrepreneurship track saw two other winners in both smart city and smart healthcare.

The second prize was awarded to Team TehTarikTech from Temasek Junior College and Victoria Junior College.

Their project, called Third Eye Shield (TES), was an AI-powered elderly monitoring system that detects critical medical emergencies with up to 97 per cent accuracy.

It integrates DeepSeek’s advanced computer vision and large language models to analyse posture, recognise emotional distress, and monitor behaviours in real-time.

The third prize went to Team MedBaymax from Singapore Institute of Management (SIM) for their project MedBOT, which leverages AI to provide personalised support and companionship for elderly persons.

Tapping on technology for social good

The winners of the Budding Youths track, Team Coolnected, emphasised the importance of hackathons to inspire youth to develop technology solutions for the greater good.

“This award fuels our passion to develop Coolnected further, and we hope it inspires other young people to contribute to solving real-world problems in Singapore,” said team leader Eng Kai Yang.

Their solution aimed to solve several problems with community fridges, from food waste and uneven distribution to unauthorised access.

The Interconnected Community Fridge addressed these issues by integrating an Internet of Things (IoT) system accessed via EZ Link cards, with temperature and door sensors, cloud data management, electronic locks, and CCTV monitoring.

Huawei International’s Chief Executive Officer, Maxi Wang, noted that “the brightest ideas spark when we see everyday challenges not as obstacles, but as opportunities.

Tech4City’s mission is to give young innovators the skills, partners, and confidence to catalyse this change”.

As part of this track, the second prize was awarded to Team Hear2GO, from Republic Polytechnic, who also received the Best Innovation in Mobility award sponsored by SBS Transit.

This project, Public Transport Accessibility App, was developed with the Singapore Association of the Visually Handicapped. The app uses AI to detect bus numbers and announce them audibly in real time, helping visually impaired commuters avoid missing buses.

The third prize was awarded to Team Reflexion, from the National University of Singapore, who presented their smart mirror project that passively monitors cognitive health during daily routines via built-in sensors and lightweight AI.

The fourth edition of the Tech4City competition wrapped up successfully with these six winners, showcasing an active effort to foster sustainable and intelligent innovations that enrich lives and foster community bonds.