AI Build
Singapore–Sarawak Friendship AI Business Design Hackathon
Two days, a real childcare centre in Sarawak, and a live five page website built almost entirely by describing the business to an AI. My first hackathon, and my team placed second runner up.
Event
Singapore–Sarawak Friendship AI Business Design Hackathon 2026
Dates
3 to 4 September 2026
Venue
Affin Bank Hikmah Exchange, Kuching (joined virtually from Singapore)
Format
Go to market hackathon, each team matched with a real Sarawakian business
Result
Second runner up, one of the top three teams out of eleven
Team
APAC Edge — Francis Lee, Damien Goh, Lynn Choa
Client
My Little House Play School, Bintulu
Tool
Kimi AI
Organised by
ANCHR AI Labs, AZAM Sarawak, Ibrandium
What we built
The Singapore–Sarawak Friendship AI Business Design Hackathon ran over 3 and 4 September 2026 at the Affin Bank Hikmah Exchange in Kuching. It is a go to market hackathon. Every team is matched with a real Sarawakian business that has good products or services but no website and no online presence, and has to build and ship them a live one over the two days. Eleven teams took part. Afiq Khateem trained everyone on turning a business brief into a working five page website with Kimi AI. My team was the only one joining virtually from Singapore.
Francis Lee brought me in, and I brought in Lynn Choa. We entered as team APAC Edge. On the first day the three of us were randomly matched with a real business owner, Ms Siti, who runs My Little House Play School, a play based childcare centre in Bintulu that has cared for local families since 2011. She was clear from the start that she did not want a demo. She wanted a website her parents could actually use.
We shipped a five page site, Home, About, Programs, Gallery and Contact, in the warm parent facing tone she asked for, with her real programme details and a WhatsApp enquiry button. The build ran from the afternoon of day one to the submission deadline the next afternoon, and every team had to open source its site on a public GitHub repository. It went live during the hackathon and it met her needs. She is very happy with it. You can view the live website here.
What stood out
It was not the speed. It was how much context Kimi AI could hold. We fed it the full brief, the actual programmes and the tone the centre wanted, and it carried all of that across the entire build without us ever hitting a wall.
The grounding for that came from Boon Kgim's Claude Code Foundation Workshop, which teaches website building fundamentals that are not tied to any one AI tool. That grounding is what let us execute cleanly on Kimi AI this time round.
The judges recognised three teams, and APAC Edge finished as second runner up out of eleven. It was my first hackathon, and a good full circle moment too. Lynn and Francis both came through the same AI Native Circle Bootcamp under Wan Wei Soh, Lynn in my cohort and Francis in the cohort where I volunteered as a facilitator. Same community, different rooms, now building together.
What this demonstrates
A non technical consultant can walk into a two day hackathon, pick up a new AI tool on the spot, and ship a real website by the end of it
Understanding the business comes first. Asking a childcare owner the right questions about her programmes, her parents, and her tone mattered more than the tool we built with
The skills transfer across tools. Fundamentals learned on Claude Code carried straight over to Kimi AI
Working remotely was not a handicap. The only team joining virtually still finished in the top three
A small business gets a real foothold in the digital space when a community shows up for it, even for just two days
The deliverable
My Little House Play School
A live five page website for a play based childcare centre in Bintulu, Sarawak, built and shipped during the hackathon.
View the live websiteIn the press
The hackathon drew coverage across Sarawak media in English, Malay, Chinese and Iban, including The Borneo Post, Sarawak Tribune, Utusan Borneo, See Hua Daily News and TV Sarawak, as well as the Sarawak state government's own news unit. The Borneo Post named ByteMe, SHB and APAC Edge as the event's top three teams.
More projects
Need a real website for your business?
The same approach, understanding your business properly first and then building fast with AI, is how I work with manufacturers, SMEs and F&B businesses. Get in touch and let us find the right starting point.
Get in touchWith thanks to
The Singapore–Sarawak Friendship AI Business Design Hackathon was organised by ANCHR AI Labs, AZAM Sarawak and Ibrandium, with Wan Wei Soh extending the invite. Afiq Khateem trained the teams on building a working five page website with Kimi AI. Thanks also to Boon Kgim, whose Claude Code Foundation Workshop laid the tool agnostic foundations that made the build possible, and to Francis Lee and Lynn Choa for two good days of building. Most of all, thanks to Ms Siti of My Little House Play School for trusting three people she had just met with her centre's first real website.