Participants of the APEC Young Entrepreneurs Conference experience some of Rokid's product. [Photo/Tide News]

Dozens of young entrepreneurs from APEC economies formed teams for hackathons on Sept 16 and 17 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, developing AI-based solutions under tight time limits during the APEC Young Entrepreneurs Conference.

Instead of sitting through traditional sessions on the conference's second day, participants visited companies and industrial parks for hands-on workshops covering artificial intelligence, lean entrepreneurship, and digital trade. Teams worked through market needs, solution design, technical development, and pitching.

At the AI workshop held at Rokid, a Hangzhou-based smart-glasses maker, participants were asked to develop practical AI-agent applications for Rokid smart glasses based on local market needs.

Malaysian student Chen Zhihong and his teammates proposed an application that could collect stock-market data, summarize developments in markets of interest while users sleep, and provide a briefing when they wake up. Within 90 minutes, the team had produced an initial version, with members handling visual design, application development, and data analysis.

Zhao Weiqi, global developer ecosystem head at Rokid, said the company organizes similar hackathons almost every two weeks and has connected with more than 35,000 developers worldwide.