Touch Grass Later is a recurring gathering for people who actually read the papers — or want to start. Every session, we pick 1–2 papers from the AI frontier (think: reasoning models, scaling laws, agents, alignment, infra) and work through them together. No lectures, no slides. Just a room of people stress-testing ideas against each other. Who it's for: Engineers, researchers, and technical founders who want to stay sharp on what's actually moving the field — not just the Twitter takes. Format: One person leads a 15-min walkthrough of the paper. Then we go long on questions, implications, and what it means for what we're building. Come prepared to read. Come ready to be wrong.

CoderPuffs Café — May Meet & Code 💝🎀 🎀 Why Every month on a relaxing weekend, at a cozy corner in a KL café, CoderPuffs gather for a fun building session. This is for girls who want to learn, build, and vibe together in a cozy café — without the usual tech intimidation.

Whether you’re

curious and have never touched code, casually exploring AI and websites, or already an experienced coder looking for a warm place to work, this space is for you. Think of it as a study date — but with laptops, lattes, and a community that cheers when your code finally works. 📝 Note: We are charging small commitment fee of RM30 to new members who are joining our monthly meetups for the first time

📍 Time & Place 🗓 Date: Sunday, 31 May 2026 ⏰ Time: 12:00 PM – 3:00 PM 📍 Location: The Ruai Room

🧩 What We’ll Do 12:00 – 12:30 PM — Say Hello! Settle in, meet your fellow CoderPuffs, and get comfy ☕💕 12:30 – 1:00 PM — Vibe Setup Quick intro + getting your tools ready (no experience required) 1:00 – 2:30 PM — Build Time Start a mini project Continue something you’re already working on Play with AI prompts or creative coding Mentors will be around to help you debug, brainstorm, and level up 2:30 – 3:00 PM — Show & Tell Share what you made, swap contacts, take cute pics, and crush those fears

👜 What to Bring 💻 Laptop + charger 🎧 Earphones (optional) ☕ Money for drinks/snacks - support the café that is hosting us! 🧠 Curiosity — that’s enough

💗 Who This Is For Complete beginners Self-taught learners Experienced developers Girls who want a softer, social space to code Anyone who’s been saying “I’ll start someday”

How does fine-tuning actually work (and when should you bother)? Most builders have a vague sense that fine-tuning exists. Fewer know what it actually does to a model. Even fewer know when to reach for it versus just prompting better, adding RAG, or switching models entirely. This session fixes that. We'll walk the full spectrum — from in-context learning to LoRA to full fine-tuning — with one question at every stop: what are you actually changing, and toward what? By the end you'll have a mental model sharp enough to make the call yourself. As always, guided discussion. No passive listening. What we'll cover — Why the pretrained model already has opinions before you touch it — The fine-tuning spectrum: what changes, what it costs, and when each approach makes sense — LoRA, QLoRA, and why low-rank approximations work better than they should — Loss functions, SFT, and DPO — what you're actually optimising for and how you'd know if it's wrong — Hands-on: fine-tuning a small model + comparing base vs fine-tuned outputs Venue partner: Jumpa KL Address: 3-2-3A, KOMPLEKS KANTONMEN PRIMA NO: 698, JALAN IPOH BATU 4 ½, 51200 Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur

Who this is for Builders who've shipped something with LLMs and want to go deeper. Some technical depth assumed — we won't be explaining what a token is. Format Guided discussion + hands-on practical Venue: Co-labs Coworking, KL Sentral Organized by AI.SEA

Join the Discord to keep updated.

AI is everywhere. Yet in many organisations, it remains stuck in pilots, buried in IT departments, or celebrated in presentations but rarely embedded into everyday work. Why is it so hard to move AI from idea to impact? CTRL+SHIFT+CHANGE returns with our third session in an ongoing series exploring why AI adoption and organisational transformation are often far harder than expected — and how leaders, teams, and practitioners can better make sense of the change dynamics around them. In earlier sessions, we explored the structural dimensions of change through models such as Leavitt’s Diamond and Micro–Meso–Macro systems. This session introduces the Three Horizons Model to explore another critical dimension of transformation - time. Participants will together examine how organisations simultaneously operate across different time horizons — and why AI adoption becomes difficult when different groups within the same organisation are operating from different time perspectives.

As usual, these sessions are meant for participants to collectively explore

The real friction points that make AI adoption harder than expected Why transition spaces between current operations and future possibilities are often the hardest parts of transformation How to distinguish between technical, leadership, governance, capability, and organisational transition challenges Simple sense-making models to better understand the type of change dynamics you are facing Practical moves within your own sphere of control that can make progress easier, even without large mandates or budgets Cross-sector perspectives from healthcare, education, and the public sector, offering practical insights you can adapt to your own organisation Participants can look forward to leaving with a sharper understanding of the dynamics behind AI transformation, clearer language to engage leadership and stakeholders, and one or two experiments you can try immediately. And as this series continues, each session will introduce a new model and a deeper language for understanding and navigating AI-enabled organisational change — while learning from one another’s real-world experiences and contexts.

More About the Facilitators

Dr Ng Yeuk Fan is a Senior Consultant Public Health Physician and Director of Corporate Development at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital & Yishun Community Hospital under NHG. He leads initiatives in value‑based care, integrated care design, and population health systems, applying systems thinking and complexity approaches to drive practical health system transformation. Dr Ng is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health and Duke‑NUS Medical School, teaching and contributing to research in health systems and care innovation.

Chan Kuang Wen is an educator. In his day job, he leads a team that drives AI literacy and innovative teaching practices for schools and the education sector. He focuses on preparing students for the future with AI, supporting staff professional development in educational technology and AI, and collaborating across departments to explore new pedagogical approaches. His work bridges practical classroom applications with strategic innovation, offering a grounded perspective on AI adoption in education.

Loy Hui Chien is a public officer with experience across government roles locally and overseas, and the first Lorong AI Fellow. Passionate about harnessing digital and AI tools to enhance his effectiveness as a professional and leader, he believes generative AI marks the most exciting era of computing in decades. He seeks to connect with AI changemakers in Singapore and strengthen our collective AI journey.

More About The Series CTRL+SHIFT+CHANGE is a discussion series for leaders and practitioners navigating AI adoption in organisations. Explore practical challenges, hear from changemakers driving AI adoption, and discuss approaches that turn ideas into actionable outcomes. Learn, reflect, and connect with peers who are experimenting with AI in real-world settings. Get involved: Learn more about Lorong AI | Speaker Sign-up | WhatsApp Community | LinkedIn | X

A casual evening for builders to show what they're shipping. No slides. No pitches. Just live product, honest reactions, and good conversation with people who are actually building. Want to demo? Apply through the event — we'll select a handful of builders to present. Live product only. If it doesn't work yet, don't show it. Want to attend? Come see what's being built. This is a good room. 📅 14 May, 4:00–5:00 PM 📍 Carousell HQ, Singapore

Part of the Road to AI Engineer Series: a series of side events for AI Engineer Singapore 2026 (May 15–17, Capitol Kempinski)

📢 Calling all Lorong AI members! Join us for a relaxed afternoon of working, conversations, and light networking at Lorong AI @ One-North. Spend the afternoon working alongside fellow Lorong AI and meet new faces across the community. Whether you’re deep in a project, curious about what others are building, or simply looking to get out of your usual workspace, this is a casual space to connect with the community and the people behind the different teams and projects.

📅 Tentative Programme

12:00 PM – Neural Networking @ The ColliderLunch will be provided!🍽️ 1:30 PM – Facilitated Co-Working @ The Collider / The Markdown 4:00 PM – Chop Chop Talk ShopChop Chop Talk Shop is a series of fast-paced, sharing sessions designed to spark ideas, share insights, and connect. 5:00 PM – Networking & unwind session @ Pantry

Note: This is exclusively for Lorong AI members only.

❗please read❗ Participants are to read the material in advance to engage more fully with the technical and methodological details during the session. If you have your own research, experience or saw something on the internet (blogpost, article etc.) that would add to the discussion, do contribute!

Suggested Pre-Reading

Main paper: Recursive Language Models Lineage papers: RAG, ReAct, MemGPT, UltraLong Optional papers: Tree of Thoughts, MemPalace,  A-MEM

Language models are increasingly expected to handle inputs that exceed their fixed context windows, whether through longer prompts, larger documents, or more complex multi-step tasks. Let's examine "Recursive Language Models" one possible approach to that problem. Instead of fitting everything into a single forward pass, RLMs treat the prompt as an external environment and recursively inspect relevant snippets as needed during inference.

The discussion situates RLMs within a broader lineage of approaches for handling long or external information. RAG for retrieving relevant context on demand, ReAct for iterative interaction with external information, MemGPT for explicit OS-style memory management, and UltraLong for pushing the context window itself to extreme scales through instruction tuning. Together, these papers reflect different strategies for retrieval, memory management, iterative interaction, and long-context scaling, while RLMs introduce a different direction: recursive inference-time navigation over context. We'll then also compare RLMs against frontier long-context models and examine the tradeoffs between context length, reasoning ability, compute efficiency, and controllability.

More About the Host Keshav Nath completed his Master of Computing from the National University of Singapore in 2026, after earning a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Delhi Technological University. He has experience across both applied AI and research. He was a student researcher at the UCLA Smart Energy Lab and completed the fully funded MITACS Globalink Research Internship onsite in Toronto, resulting in three publications. In Singapore, he worked as a Junior AI Engineer at Staple AI, building production-grade agentic systems, and as a Graduate Teaching Assistant at NUS for Advanced Analytics with Big Data.

More About the Series Paper Club is Lorong AI’s community-driven initiative where members gather to discuss and analyze academic papers, research articles, or key developments in artificial intelligence. Get involved: Learn more about Lorong AI | Speaker Sign-up | WhatsApp Community | LinkedIn | X

OpenClaw KL is back for Event #3, now co-organized with Codex Community MY. Join us on Monday, 25 May 2026 (7:00–9:00 PM, KL) for our first monthly AI agent builder roundup: what changed this month, what builders are shipping, and what tools are worth trying right now. The first two events focused on getting people set up and going deep on OpenClaw Skills, CLI, and MCP. From Event #3 onwards, we're moving into a recurring monthly format, a regular place to keep up with the AI agent space while actually building, not just reading about it. The location will be revealed when you are approved for the meetup. What to expect OpenClaw Monthly Bulletin: monthly AI landscape roundup to cover what has happened this month All About OpenAI Codex: latest product release + a live walkthrough of how Codex plugs into OpenClaw Guided Build Sprint: pick one of five starter builds, work with a facilitator, and ship a working agent before you leave Networking: wind down with builders working on the same stuff Who this is for? Developers, founders, product operators, and AI builders who want a regular space to keep up with AI agents by building. New to OpenClaw? Come early for the Setup Clinic at 6:30 PM. Facilitators will help you get your environment running so you're ready when the main session starts. Setup guide will be shared in advance. Bring a laptop. See you there.

What are the mechanisms by which humanoid robotics research evolves into deployable systems and multi-domain applications? Professor Giorgio Metta (Scientific Director, Italian Institute of Technology) will present the Embodied AI work of the Italian Institute of Technology. He will start from his own research on humanoid robotics and present a whole set of derived work that originated in various forms from that research. This includes a variety of autonomous robots with application in the medical, rehabilitation and prosthetics, space, industrial and modular robotics, and of course some recent development in humanoids and human-robot interaction. He will further describe how some of these robots are finding their way into commercial products through the creation of startups.

More About the Speaker

Giorgio Metta is Scientific Director of the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT). He holds an MSc (1994) and PhD (2000) in Electrical Engineering from the University of Genoa, and was a postdoctoral associate at the MIT AI Lab (now CSAIL) from 2001 to 2002. He has held academic positions at the University of Genoa and served as Professor of Cognitive Robotics at the University of Plymouth (UK) from 2012 to 2019. Since 2020, he has been Visiting Professor at the University of Manchester (UK). His research focuses on bioinspired systems and humanoid robotics, with emphasis on robots that learn from experience. He has authored over 300 scientific publications and has led numerous international and industrial research projects. He coordinated the development of the iCub humanoid robot, with more than 50 units now deployed in research laboratories across Japan, China, Singapore, Germany, Spain, the UK, and the United States. He also serves on scientific and industry boards, including the Digital Innovation Hub Liguria, the Humane Technology Lab at the Catholic University of Milan, A*STAR Singapore, and RAISE Scarl (NextGenerationEU-funded project), as well as advisory roles with Gefran S.p.A., Industrie De Nora S.p.A., and private equity funds HAT Sgr and the Quadrivio Group.

More About the Series Praxis is a focused technical sharing series built around researcher-driven discussions on advanced AI and applied research topics. Get involved: Learn more about Lorong AI | Speaker Sign-up | WhatsApp Community | LinkedIn | X

A casual evening for builders to show what they're shipping. No slides. No pitches. Just live product, honest reactions, and good conversation with people who are actually building. Want to demo? Apply through the event — we'll select a handful of builders to present. Live product only. If it doesn't work yet, don't show it. Want to attend? Come see what's being built. This is a good room. 📅 14 May, 4:00–5:00 PM 📍 Carousell HQ, Singapore

Part of the Road to AI Engineer Series: a series of side events for AI Engineer Singapore 2026 (May 15–17, Capitol Kempinski)

🚀 Build Club is landing in Singapore A curated night celebrating the best of AI in Singapore. Build Club is one of the world’s largest AI builder communities, with 70K+ members across 60+ cities - and we’re officially touching down in Singapore. We’re bringing together the people building, backing and shaping the next wave of AI across startups, enterprise and the broader ecosystem. Expect a high-signal room of founders, builders, operators, investors and AI-curious leaders. What to expect ✨ Industry roundtable on what’s happening in AI ⚡ Speed demos from Singapore AI startups 🤝 Curated networking 🍸 Drinks, food + good vibes 🚀 Some of Singapore’s most ambitious AI people in one room Agenda [20 + Q&A] Industry roundtable: What’s happening in AI We’ll kick off with a fast-paced ecosystem roundtable to get the lay of the land: what’s actually happening in AI, where adoption is moving, what founders are building, and how Singapore is positioning itself in the next wave.

Featuring

Dat Han - Investor, Lightspeed SEA Alex Hau - Singapore Lead, AI Collective Zhenzhi Chng - AI Acceleration & CoE, Singtel Kevin Zhu - Building Build Club [3 min each] Startup speed demos A showcase of AI startups building at the frontier of AI Eugene Cheah - Founder, Featherless AI Serena Lam - Founder, Fuzzy AI Fatima Rizwan - Founder, Okara Henry Mao - Founder, Smithery AI This is not a passive panel night. It’s a room for the people actually building what’s next - and a chance to meet the founders, investors, operators and ecosystem leaders shaping AI in Singapore. Limited capacity. Come meet the future of AI in Singapore. See you there, Annie + the Build Club team

For the coming May DataScienceSG Meetup, we're going inside the enterprise to see how production LLM systems actually get built. Join us as OCBC's Group Data Office, AI Lab shares two sessions—on evaluating LLM outputs at scale, and on multi-agent pipelines automating financial research on the Global Markets desk. Agenda 6:30 PM – 7:00 PM Registration & Networking 7:00 PM – 7:30 PM LLM-evaluator 7:30 PM – 8:00 PM GM Capture: An AI-Powered Multi-Agent Pipeline for Automated Financial Research 8:00 PM – 8:30 PM Q&A and Closing

Synopsis Session 1: LLM-evaluator by Rionaldi Chandraseta

Session 2: GM Capture: An AI-Powered Multi-Agent Pipeline for Automated Financial Research by Praveen Prashant & Akshay Sachdeva

More About the Speakers Rionaldi Chandraseta is a Data Scientist in OCBC Group Data Office, AI Lab. With several years of experience building production-grade AI systems ranging from traditional ML models to Agentic AI, he currently specializes in working with LLM models and creating Agentic AI solutions for enterprise clients. Praveen Prashant is a Data Scientist at OCBC's Group Data Office, AI Lab, with nearly a decade of experience in the machine learning industry. He specialises in translating ambitious business requirements into tangible, scalable ML products that generate measurable revenue impact. In his current role at OCBC, he owns AI/ML products across the Global Markets desk, focusing on architecting and deploying large language model (LLM) based systems, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines, and time series models that help business teams automate research and drive revenue. Prior to OCBC, he worked on causal inference at Gojek and co-founded a Y Combinator-backed technology startup. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Engineering Physics from IIT Madras. Akshay Sachdeva is a Data Scientist in OCBC's Group Data Office, AI Lab, where he specializes in building production-grade LLM and multi-agent systems for enterprise applications. His current work focuses on designing and deploying multi-agent AI architectures for automation, reasoning, and decision-support use cases, alongside developing stock marker prediction systems using time-series models and scalable ML pipelines. Akshay bridges research and production by translating advanced AI capabilities into measurable business outcomes. He holds a Master of Engineering from the National University of Singapore.

Community Partner: Raffles Venture Partners Raffles Venture Partners is a Singapore-based venture capital firm supporting high-growth startups across technology, AI, fintech, and emerging industries. Through strategic investments and industry networks, they help founders scale innovative businesses while contributing to the growth of Singapore’s startup and innovation ecosystem. Community Partner: Lorong AI Lorong AI brings together government, industry, and research to build Singapore’s AI ecosystem. A collaborative hub for AI practitioners connect, innovate, and shape the future of AI in Singapore throughout curated programs and a supportive community.

More About the Series After Dark is Lorong AI’s evening meetup series for the AI community. Bringing together talks, demos, and community sharing sessions, the series creates opportunities to connect, explore emerging technologies, and exchange insights across the ecosystem Get involved: Learn more about Lorong AI | Speaker Sign-up | WhatsApp Community | LinkedIn | X

Build Club Brisbane — Build with Notion AI Agents + Harness Engineering AI agents are quickly becoming the new interface for software — but most builders only see half the stack. On one side, tools like Notion AI Agents make it easy to embed intelligence directly into your workspace — turning notes, databases, and workflows into systems that can think, summarize, plan, and automate work. On the other side, Harness Engineering is the deeper layer powering real agent systems — the infrastructure that manages context, memory, orchestration, tools, and execution environments so agents can actually complete tasks autonomously. In this session, we’re bringing both worlds together. Join Notion Ambassadors and Campus Leaders as they showcase how they use Notion and its AI ecosystem to support work, projects, and business workflows — from simple AI instructions inside pages to building custom agents that operate across your workspace. Then we’ll explore the builder side: how modern AI systems are architected using harness engineering — the patterns used to design agents that collaborate, share context, call tools, and operate reliably at scale. If there’s time, we’ll also run a quick “build something together” session so everyone can walk away with a working AI workflow they can continue improving after the event. Whether you’re interested in AI productivity systems, agent architecture, or building full-stack AI applications, this session will give you a practical look at how these pieces fit together. Expect live demos, practical examples, and a room full of builders experimenting with the next generation of AI workflows. Bring a laptop if you want to follow along. Let’s build.

AI Builders Residency: Thursdays Think of it as a work day with good company. Every Thursday, we open 10 seats for people who are building things in AI and want a space to focus. You show up, plug in, and do your thing. Sometimes it’s quiet heads-down work, sometimes it’s swapping ideas with the person next to you. Nothing fancy, no set program, just real people making progress. At 5PM, we do a simple Show & Tell. Everyone shares a little of what they’ve been working on. That’s the best way to build accountability in the projects that you’re working on. We keep it small on purpose so it stays meaningful. 10 seats only. If this feels like your kind of Thursday, apply or DM to join.

A casual evening for builders to show what they're shipping. No slides. No pitches. Just live product, honest reactions, and good conversation with people who are actually building. Want to demo? Apply through the event — we'll select a handful of builders to present. Live product only. If it doesn't work yet, don't show it. Want to attend? Come see what's being built. This is a good room. 📅 14 May, 4:00–5:00 PM 📍 Carousell HQ, Singapore

Part of the Road to AI Engineer Series: a series of side events for AI Engineer Singapore 2026 (May 15–17, Capitol Kempinski)

As AI continues to advance healthcare innovation, new possibilities are emerging across drug development, diagnostics, and clinical care. Explore how researchers and clinicians are applying AI to tackle complex healthcare challenges from engineering viral vectors for gene therapy to improving early detection of cognitive impairment.*

More About the Sharings Dr. Sheena N. Smith (Assistant Professor, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, in the School of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology) will share on "AI for Next-Generation Gene Therapy: Opportunities in Viral Vector Engineering”

A/Prof. Liew Tau Ming (Senior Consultant, Psychiatry, Singapore General Hospital) will share on "PENSIEVE-AI: Rapid, Accessible Cognitive Test for Seniors above 65 years"

*As the programme is still being finalized, do note that details are subject to change.

More About the Speakers

Dr. Sheena N. Smith is an Assistant Professor at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, in the School of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology (CCRB). Her research focuses on engineering next-generation gene therapy delivery systems at the intersection of protein engineering, synthetic biology, and translational biotechnology. Her group develops advanced delivery platforms, including virus-like particle (VLP) systems, for targeted and localised therapeutic delivery to the cells and tissues where they are most needed. Drawing on experience across both academia and industry, Dr. Smith is particularly interested in how computational and AI-enabled approaches can accelerate the development of more precise, effective, and clinically relevant gene therapies.

Associate Professor Liew Tau Ming is a Senior Consultant Geriatric Psychiatrist and Clinician Scientist at Singapore General Hospital, specialising in memory and mental health care for older patients. He serves as Associate Professor at Duke-NUS Medical School and leads a nationally-funded programme of AI research, including Project PENSIEVE and Project PENSIEVE II—AI tools for scalable detection of dementia and delirium. Beyond his clinical and research roles, A/Prof. Liew is a clinical examiner for the Royal College of Psychiatrists (UK), serves on the editorial boards of journals including BMC Medicine and BMC Geriatrics, and provides professional consultation to pharmaceutical companies on geriatric psychiatry. His work integrates behavioural and data sciences with a focus on enhancing the wellbeing of the ageing population.

More About the Series AI Wednesdays is Lorong AI’s weekly gathering, bringing together practitioners, researchers and innovators for technical discussions on research insights, product development and engineering practices. Get involved: Learn more about Lorong AI | Speaker Sign-up | WhatsApp Community | LinkedIn | X

🚀 Malaysia's AI builders, meet the team behind the platform you're building on. Across Southeast Asia, a new generation of founders and technical operators is emerging — and Malaysia is becoming an increasingly important part of that story. That’s why January Capital, together with OpenAI and Jelawang Capital, is bringing OpenAI’s Startups Team to Kuala Lumpur for a curated, hands-on session with founders and technical operators building AI products. 🇲🇾 Curated. Candid. Builder-first.

The session is designed as a guided build sprint, where you’ll

Work on real product problems using OpenAI’s tools (Codex, Agents SDK, multimodal capabilities) Engage directly with OpenAI’s team as you build Demo your output and learn from other teams We’re bringing together a high-signal group of builders — founders, CTOs and engineers — for a session focused on real implementation, not theory.

💡 What you’ll get Hands-on time building with OpenAI’s tools Perspective from January Capital on how AI products are being built and scaled across the region Peer exchange with other AI builders OpenAI credits for all attendees

🏆 Top demos will receive

$25,000 / $10,000 / $5,000 in OpenAI credits for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place respectively ChatGPT Pro (1 year) for winning teams Agenda

👥 Who this is for

We are curating builders who are

Founders, CTOs and engineers actively building AI products Working on real-world applications (from prototype to production) Comfortable working through technical problems live Interested in engaging directly with OpenAI’s team Spots are limited and curated.

About January Capital January Capital is an early-stage venture and growth credit investor backing software companies across Asia-Pacific, with a focus on Southeast Asia. We partner closely with founders from day one through scale, and actively support the builders shaping the next generation of AI and software products in the region.

About OpenAI OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company building advanced models and tools used by developers, startups and enterprises globally. Its products power a wide range of applications — from AI agents to multimodal systems — enabling teams to build and deploy AI in real-world environments.

About Jelawang Capital Sdn Bhd Jelawang Capital is Malaysia’s National Fund-of-Funds under Khazanah Nasional Berhad, focused on strengthening the country’s venture ecosystem through investments and partnerships with fund managers. It plays an active role in supporting the development of Malaysia’s next generation of founders and technology companies.

About this event Join us for an evening of live demos, sharp conversations, and practical takes on what it actually takes to build and deploy AI agents in the real world. This is a curated side event during AI Engineer Singapore week, co-hosted by AI Tinkerers Singapore, GFTN and Tencent Cloud. We’re bringing together founders, engineers, researchers, and product builders who are actively working on applied AI systems — especially systems that move beyond chat and into execution, workflows, and production use. Expect a technical, high-signal crowd and a relaxed format. We’re keeping things short, practical, and interactive.

What to expect Short demos from builders working on applied AI products Practical perspectives on deploying agentic systems in real environments A look at how teams are thinking about infrastructure, tooling, and execution Conversations with founders, engineers, and product people building in AI Time for networking, Q&A, and spontaneous debate

Format Doors open: 4:30 PM Event starts: 5:00 PM Live demos and short presentations Networking and discussion Wrap: 7:30 PMwith a little buffer for overrun

Who should come

This event is best suited for

AI engineers ML engineers Founders building AI products Product leaders working on AI features Technical operators and builders deploying AI in production Researchers with applied work to share We’ll be curating attendance to keep the room high-signal and relevant.

Demo style Demos will be kept short and punchy — roughly 5 to 7 minutes each — followed by discussion. The goal is not polished keynote energy. The goal is to show interesting work, learn fast, and have good conversations with people who actually build.

Themes

Themes include

AI agents and execution Production workflows Applied AI products Tooling, infra, and deployment Real-world lessons from building and shipping

Hosts Yong Quan Tan - City Lead @ AI Tinkerers Singapore Jonathan Wong - Director, International Financial Public Affairs at Tencent Vanessa Ho - Senior Manager, Startup & Venture Partnership @ GFTN

Notes Capacity is limited Attendance may be approved to keep the audience relevant More speaker details will be announced soon

Part of the Road to AI Engineer Series: a series of side events for AI Engineer Singapore 2026 (May 15–17, Capitol Kempinski)

Important note re access to the building Please enter Bloom Basement from bus-port side of building. Go down the short external staircase to the left of the basement. May Event Come join us building with Gen AI! We are a bunch of students, developers, founders, and investors with great builder energy and everyone is welcome! This month we’re getting hands-on with Samreid Manez, CEO of Valearnis. He'll be taking us through prototype to product - essential AI tools, start-up insights, and founder knowledge to take your idea to the next level. Valearnis is an AI powered educational platform built in Perth, WA. We provide parents, schools, and students with meaningful Socratic tutoring, curriculum relevant lessons, and problem solving skills to fully equip every student for the future ahead! See you on the 11th! 😅

The Essentials

📍 Where: Hosted by our friends at Bloom Bentley 🕒 When: Monday 11th May 5:30pm 💧 Bring: Your laptop and a water bottle. ⚠️ Note: In-person only! Please only rego if you are in Perth and definitely coming and can stay for the session. It helps us with catering numbers. Huge thanks to our supporters: WADSIH, Curtin Commercialisation and Entrepreneurship, Bloom, DDD Perth, and AI.SEA for making this happen. 👇 Secure your spot now! #BuildClub #PerthTech #AI #WAInnovation

Important notice Participants are to read the material in advance to engage more fully with the technical and methodological details during the session. If you have your own research, experience or saw something on the internet (blogpost, article etc.) that would add to the discussion, do contribute!

AI agents have evolved from simple reasoning loops into systems that can query external knowledge, call external tools, learn from failure, write and execute code, and now attempt increasingly end-to-end research pipelines. This session cuts through the hype to focus on the design ideas that made this possible, and what it means when AI systems begin participating in the research process itself. The main paper is "Towards End-to-End Automation of AI Research" (Nature, 2026), supported by four lineage papers that show how the field arrived here: ReAct for reasoning grounded in action, Toolformer for autonomous tool and API use, Reflexion for learning from failure through verbal feedback, and SWE-agent for operating in real code execution environments. Together, these four papers capture the capabilities that The AI Scientist brings together into an end-to-end research pipeline. The session will also critically engage with what the main paper actually achieves and where it falls short—including its authors’ concerns about research integrity, review-system overload, and the future of scientific training.

Suggested pre-reading

· Main paper: Towards End-to-End Automation of AI Research  · Lineage papers: ReAct, Toolformer, Reflexion, SWE-agent · Optional (industry and forward-looking context):  OpenAI Deep Research System Card, Anthropic's How We Built Our Multi-Agent Research System, Google AI Co-Scientist, OpenAI PaperBench, Anthropic Automated Weak-to-Strong Researcher

More About the Host Anshu Singh is an AI and Data Privacy Research Engineer at the Government Technology Agency (GovTech), Singapore. Before joining GovTech, her research focused on the intersection of computer vision and privacy at the NUS Centre for Research in Privacy Technologies. She holds a Master’s degree in AI from the National University of Singapore and enjoys building practical, user-centric solutions by putting research into practice. Keshav Nath completed his Master of Computing from the National University of Singapore in 2026, after earning a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Delhi Technological University. He has experience across both applied AI and research. He was a student researcher at the UCLA Smart Energy Lab and completed the fully funded MITACS Globalink Research Internship onsite in Toronto, resulting in three publications. In Singapore, he worked as a Junior AI Engineer at Staple AI, building production-grade agentic systems, and as a Graduate Teaching Assistant at NUS for Advanced Analytics with Big Data.

More About the Series Paper Club is Lorong AI’s community-driven initiative where members gather to discuss and analyze academic papers, research articles, or key developments in artificial intelligence. Get involved: Learn more about Lorong AI | Speaker Sign-up | WhatsApp Community | LinkedIn | X

Note: This event is only for Lorong AI public officers only.

Airia's AI Agent Hackathon - Public Sector Edition Join us for Airia's AI Agent Hackathon, designed specifically for Singapore's public sector. Build real AI agents on Airia's low-code platform, learn how to govern them responsibly, and put them to the test all in one session.

This is recommended for public officers curious about AI, actively building internal tools, or responsible for AI adoption and governance in their agencies. No coding experience required, Airia's platform is low-code and beginner-friendly.

Schedule 👋1400 - 1415: Opening and Introductions 💻1400 - 1440: Airia Demo/Walkthrough (inc. Governance for IMDA Model Governance Framework) 👥 1440 -1445: Team Formation ⚡ 1445 - 1630: Build Your Agent!

👾 1630 - 1700: Hack an agent Capture the Flag 🎤 1700 - 1730: Presentations & Judging 🏆 1730 - 1800 : Awards and Networking What's New This Edition We're raising the bar. This hackathon introduces two new elements alongside the build challenge: AI Governance overview - Before you build, learn how to build responsibly. A focused session aligned with IMDA's Model AI Governance Framework (MGF), covering human oversight, explainability, data governance, and accountability and how Airia's platform maps to each pillar. AgentBreaker CTF - After the build, it's time to hack and break things. Teams will attempt to exploit a pre-built agent with real vulnerabilities: prompt injection, missing guardrails, overprivileged tool access, etc. Find the flaws and earn your place on the leaderboard.

Choose Your Problem Statement! Bring Your Own Challenge (BYOC): Design an AI Agent which addresses your agency's unique pressing issues. Operational Efficiency: Build an AI Agent which automates repetitive tasks (i.e. drafting reports, collating data, and tracking project progress) to free up time for higher-value work Citizen Engagement: Create faster, more consistent citizen-friendly experiences across multiple channels (e.g. websites, hotlines, counters, forms). Policy Simplification: Make complex regulations accessible through clear, plain language explanations while maintaining accuracy.

How You Will be Evaluated

Your solutions will be evaluated on Impact & Relevance (30%), Innovation & Creativity (10%), Feasibility & Usability (25%), and Trust, Risk & Security (35%).

Some Important Notes Please bring an internet-facing laptop for the session Consider preparing sample or sanitised datasets for your problem statement to maximise development time. As spaces are limited, do RSVP early and do note that participation will be subjected to approval.

About Airia Airia is an Enterprise AI Security and Orchestration Platform that empowers organisations to securely build, deploy, and manage AI solutions at scale using low-code approaches. Check out their product offerings here.

We get up close and personal with entrepreneurs who are putting AI to work in their small businesses, not in theory, but in practice. Hear firsthand from business owners on the practical use cases they've explored, the lessons they've learnt along the way, and what's genuinely starting to move the needle. Whether you're just starting your AI journey or looking for fresh ideas to go further, this is a candid, community-driven conversation you won't want to miss.

Speakers & Panel Jin Kang-Møller is a designer and Affiliate Faculty at SMU Academy, where she teaches executives how to design better human experiences with AI. She is the author of The Simplicity Playbook for Innovators. Formerly leading customer experience strategy at OCBC, she now helps organisations across Singapore and Europe bring the power of design into their business. When she's not in the room facilitating, she's out running, snowboarding, or building lovable AI-powered products. Cordillia Tan is an entrepreneur known for transforming Pitstop Tyres from a traditional petrol-station style shop into a high-growth, content-led business. Colloquially known as Singapore’s “Tyre Jie Jie,” she leveraged social media to turn a humble family operation into a seven-figure automotive brand. She is now focused on applying AI across her company to build faster, leaner, and more scalable businesses. Outside of work, she is an avid reader and can often be found tucked away in a quiet corner of Kinokuniya.

More About the Series ThursTalks is Lorong AI's curated dialogue series featuring 1 spotlight speaker/theme per session. Each session emphasizes focused perspectives, followed by an extended fireside chat or open discussion to encourage deeper understanding and meaningful exchange of ideas. Get involved: Lorong AI | Speaker Sign-up | WhatsApp Community | LinkedIn | X

An evening crash course on becoming an AI engineer in 2026. Local builders, live demos, open Q&A — and a look at what's coming the rest of the week. ✦✦✦ You've been hearing "AI engineer" everywhere. Maybe you've poked at the OpenAI API. Maybe you're a backend dev wondering if this is your year to make the jump. Maybe you keep seeing agents, RAG, evals, MCP fly past on your timeline and want someone to tell you which of those actually matter. Spend an evening with us at Stripe Singapore and we'll get you oriented. This is the UnConference — the warm-up to AI Engineer Singapore 2026. Four hours, designed for people who are new to the space and want a fast, honest ramp from local engineers who are actually shipping. You'll hear short talks from Singapore-based AI engineers, watch live demos of the tools and patterns we use day-to-day, ask us anything, and leave with a clear picture of what to do next — including how to make the most of the full conference May 16–17. No prior AI experience required. Bring curiosity and questions. ✦✦✦ What the evening looks like 5:00 – 5:30 — Doors, food, settle in. Grab dinner, find a seat, meet the people next to you. 5:30 – 6:15 — Live demos. We walk through the core stack on stage: an agent doing real work, a RAG system answering questions over a real corpus, evals catching a real bug. You see the abstractions in motion. 6:15 –7:30 — Open Q&A: ask us anything, we'll show you live. This is the heart of the night. Drop your questions — anonymous board, vote up the ones you want answered most. We answer with our laptops open: code on screen, real APIs, real bugs, real trade-offs."How does function calling actually work?" → we show you. "When should I use RAG vs fine-tuning?" → we run both. "How do I evaluate an agent?" → we write the eval live. No question too basic. The point is for you to see how an AI engineer thinks through a problem in real time. 7:30 – 8:30 — Local speakers: what AI engineering actually looks like in Singapore. Short, punchy talks from engineers building in the wild — what they ship, what broke, what they wish they'd known on day one. This is the "show me, don't tell me" hour. 8:30 – 9:00 — What's next + the full conference. Your Monday playbook: what to build next, who to follow, what communities to join. Plus a walkthrough of AI Engineer Singapore 2026 — the talks, workshops, and people you don't want to miss over the next two days. What you'll leave with A mental map of the 2026 AI engineering stack — signal vs hype. Answers to the questions you've been too embarrassed to ask. A short list of what to build next week. A room full of people who'll be at the conference with you. And a much sharper sense of which sessions on May 15–17 are worth your time. Who this is for Builders new to AI who want a structured ramp. Career switchers. Recent grads. PMs and designers who want to understand what's actually possible. Indie hackers ready to go from "calling the API" to "engineering with AI." Anyone holding an AIE Singapore ticket who wants a strong on-ramp before the main event kicks off. Who this is NOT for If you've already shipped agents in production or run evals at scale, you'll be bored. Skip this and come straight to the main conference — or DM us about helping mentor. What to bring Yourself and your questions. A laptop is optional — you don't need to code along. We'll have a live question board open from the moment doors open, so you can drop questions throughout the night and upvote the ones you want answered. ✦✦✦ Hosts Sherry Jiang — CEO @ Peek Yong Quan — City Lead @ AI Tinkerers Singapore Capacity 150 seats. We're keeping it small to maintain mentor density. Waitlist will be honored in order. Part of AI Engineer Singapore 2026 (May 15–17, Capitol Kempinski). Conference pass not required for the UnConference, but highly recommended if you want the full week.

AI systems are being deployed faster than we know how to govern them. This AI Wednesdays, we look at two sides of that problem: whether AI actually understands the cultures it serves, and whether we can trust AI agents to act safely when no one is watching. Two speakers, one uncomfortable question. Are we building AI we can actually rely on?

More About the Sharings Dr Eric J. W. Orlowski (Research Fellow, NUS AI Institute) will share on "Cultural data isn’t culture; culture is culture: Rebalancing cultural alignment methodologies”

Matthias Chin (Founder and CEO of CloudsineAI) will share on "Trustworthiness in Agentic AI Systems: Visibility, Traceability and Control”.

More About the Speakers Dr Eric J. W. Orlowski is a Research Fellow at the NUS AI Institute (NAII) whose work sits at the intersection of AI governance, policy, and the practical realities of deploying AI systems across different social and institutional contexts. Trained in Science and Technology Studies and ethnographic research, he has worked across ASEAN with stakeholders ranging from grassroots communities and MSMEs to governments, as well as with governance ecosystems in the UK and Nordics, with a consistent focus on making AI governance practical, usable, and supportive of innovation. At NAII, he currently leads research on cultural alignment in AI, examining how teams can think more clearly about what it means for an AI system to be truly "culturally aligned" when existing benchmarks and proxy measures often fall short of capturing context, interpretation, and real-world use. Matthias Chin is the Founder and CEO of CloudsineAI, a startup focused on protecting organisations from generative AI threats, bringing over two decades of cybersecurity expertise building scalable security systems for government, healthcare, and financial institutions. A SembCorp scholar and Honours graduate from the University of Toronto, he holds a range of credentials spanning AI and cybersecurity including CISSP, CCIE, and certifications from SANS and DeepLearning.AI. A sought-after speaker who has presented at Black Hat Asia's inaugural AI Summit, Matthias also serves on the Industry Advisory Board at SUTD and the Examination Board at Ngee Ann Polytechnic, where he actively shapes the future of AI security across Southeast Asia and beyond.

More About the Series AI Wednesdays is Lorong AI’s weekly gathering, bringing together practitioners, researchers and innovators for technical discussions on research insights, product development and engineering practices. Get involved: Learn more about Lorong AI | Speaker Sign-up | WhatsApp Community | LinkedIn | X

🦞 Arkclaw Onboarding & Openclaw Beginner Workshop

Everyone is talking about AI in business, but most conversations stop at automation. This AI Toolsdays, we go further. Hear how CCS is helping businesses self-assess their AI practices for compliance, how AI is quietly fixing the broken handoffs in procurement, and how AI agents are being deployed in the real world to serve real customers across 40 languages. Three speakers, one question: what does it actually look like when AI becomes a genuine business partner?

More About the Sharings Meng Huang (Data Analyst, CCS) will share on "CCS' AI Markets (AIM) Toolkit".

Jasper Yap (Co-Founder & CTO, ProcureFlow & Eezee) will share on "AI-Powered Procurement: Streamlining Purchase Requisitions and Contract Documentation"

Alex Ng, (Co-founder & CEO, Intellify.SG) will share on "Service Design, Powered by AI — Redesigning service, not just automating it"

More About the Speakers Meng Huang is a Data Analyst at the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore, who has played a key role in the development of the AI Markets toolkit. Meng Huang holds a B.Soc.Sci. in Economics from NUS, with a focus on data-driven analysis and applied machine learning. Jasper Yap is co-founder and CTO of ProcureFlow, an AI procurement platform used by enterprises across Southeast Asia to run RFQs, tenders, and supplier negotiations. He also co-founded Eezee, largest B2B marketplace serving multinationals across 5 markets in SEA. Jasper believes AI will permanently change how businesses buy and sell, with agents soon sourcing, evaluating, and transacting on companies' behalf. ProcureFlow is his bet on that shift. Alex Ng, Co-founder of Intellify.SG, deploys unmanned retail stores and AI agents in retail and hospitality across Singapore and the region. Recent work includes the Singapore Pavilion at Gulfood 2026 (Dubai), Irvins at Changi Airport T4, and Metropolitan YMCA's AI concierge MYlo. Alex is also an Associate Trainer with NTUC LearningHub.

More About the Series Curious about the growing world of AI tools and how they’re shaping different industries? AI ToolsDays is our beginner-friendly, demo-focused series organized around specific themes, showcasing AI tools in action through practical walkthroughs and real-world use cases. Get involved: Learn more about Lorong AI | Speaker Sign-up | WhatsApp Community | LinkedIn | X

Join us at OpenAI Codex Community Meetup - KL We're taking over a cafe in KL and inviting Codex users to swing by. This is a community co-working session for developers building with OpenAI's Codex - the AI software engineering agent that works on tasks in parallel while you focus on what matters. Think: pair programming with an agent that doesn't sleep. Whether you're building with Codex, delegating tasks through the desktop app, or just getting started — come build alongside people who are doing the same.

Three co-working slots available

Morning: 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM Afternoon: 12:00 PM – 7:00 PM Evening: 5:00 PM - 10 PM Or drop by anytime to grab a coffee and see what people are building.

What's on

Codex credits and stickers for registered co-workers Good builders, real projects, zero death by PowerPoint Register for the slot that works for you. Venue: Ruai Room, KL Date: Saturday, May 2, 2025

Community Note This event is organised by Brendan Beh in their capacity as Codex Ambassadors.

While you were sleeping, someone's OpenClaw agent was filing their emails, scoring their leads, and pushing commits to GitHub. This is their story. OpenClaw hit 247,000 GitHub stars for a reason — it's the first tool that actually runs your life instead of just answering questions. And the builders who've been running it for a few weeks are doing things that sound like science fiction to everyone else. On April 30, we're bringing them together to show you. What to expect A relaxed evening of real demos from real builders in the AI.SEA community — followed by a guided setup round so you leave with a running agent of your own. No pitch decks. No sponsored content. Just people showing their actual setups, and enough time to get yours going too. The format 🦞 Builder demos — 4–5 community members show what their OpenClaw agent is actually doing. Real setups, real use cases, real results. 🧠 Zero to lobster — Never set it up? We'll walk you through it live. OpenClaw running, mem9 configured for persistent memory, done before the session ends. 🔨 Open floor — Already running OpenClaw? Bring your setup. We want to see it. Who this is for Builders who are already running OpenClaw and want to go deeper. Builders who set it up and haven't figured out what to do with it yet. Anyone who's been watching the hype and wants to see what's actually possible — and leave with something real. What to bring — Laptop and an LLM API key if you want to get set up (OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepSeek, or any supported provider) — Your OpenClaw setup if you have one — Something worth showing, if you're up for it Free to join. See you online, April 30.

AI is everywhere. Yet in many organisations, it remains stuck in pilots, buried in IT departments, or celebrated in presentations but rarely embedded into everyday work. Why is it so hard to move AI from idea to impact? CTRL+SHIFT+CHANGE returns with our second session, as we dive deeper into more models and discussion on how to make progress in driving AI adoption without pushing blindly against invisible barriers.

Together, we’ll explore

The real friction points that make AI adoption harder than expected How to distinguish between technical, leadership, governance, and capability challenges, rather than treating everything as a “technology problem” Simple sense-making models to map your organisational context and understand the type of problem you are actually facing Practical moves within your own sphere of control that can make progress easier, even without large mandates or budgets Cross-sector perspectives from healthcare, education, and the public sector, offering practical insights you can adapt to your own organisation Leave with a sharper understanding of the dynamics behind AI transformation, clearer language to engage leadership and stakeholders, and one or two experiments you can try immediately.

More About the Facilitators

Dr Ng Yeuk Fan is a Senior Consultant Public Health Physician and Director of Corporate Development at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital & Yishun Community Hospital under NHG. He leads initiatives in value‑based care, integrated care design, and population health systems, applying systems thinking and complexity approaches to drive practical health system transformation. Dr Ng is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health and Duke‑NUS Medical School, teaching and contributing to research in health systems and care innovation.

Chan Kuang Wen is an educator. In his day job, he leads a team that drives AI literacy and innovative teaching practices for schools and the education sector. He focuses on preparing students for the future with AI, supporting staff professional development in educational technology and AI, and collaborating across departments to explore new pedagogical approaches. His work bridges practical classroom applications with strategic innovation, offering a grounded perspective on AI adoption in education.

Loy Hui Chien is a public officer with experience across government roles locally and overseas, and the first Lorong AI Fellow. Passionate about harnessing digital and AI tools to enhance his effectiveness as a professional and leader, he believes generative AI marks the most exciting era of computing in decades. He seeks to connect with AI changemakers in Singapore and strengthen our collective AI journey.

More About The Series CTRL+SHIFT+CHANGE is a discussion series for leaders and practitioners navigating AI adoption in organisations. Explore practical challenges, hear from changemakers driving AI adoption, and discuss approaches that turn ideas into actionable outcomes. Learn, reflect, and connect with peers who are experimenting with AI in real-world settings. Get involved: Learn more about Lorong AI | Speaker Sign-up | WhatsApp Community | LinkedIn | X