GECO Asia wins at Singapore Business Review Technology Excellence Awards 2026

The winning initiative helps organisations adopt AI quickly and affordably whilst building a foundation for growth.

GECO Asia won the AI - IT Services category at the Singapore Business Review Technology Excellence Awards 2026 for its Break into AI: Hack to Hire initiative, recognising its execution-led approach to digital transformation through talent readiness.

Headquartered in Singapore, GECO Asia tackles one of the toughest challenges in digital transformation: talent readiness. The firm supports both B2B organisations scaling digital initiatives and B2C talent building industry-ready skills. Since May 2023, GECO Asia’s Upskill Today division has delivered enterprise-ready tech talent across 10 sectors, including Logistics, Fintech, FMCG, Telecommunications, Commercial Real Estate, and Oil & Gas. 

Break into AI: Hack to Hire was created to meet the rising demand for practical AI adoption. The programme combines real business use cases, intensive hackathons, and hands-on mentorship to convert AI potential into production-ready outcomes. Top-performing participants are deployed into live projects, enabling organisations to adopt AI with confidence whilst building a sustainable pipeline of AI-ready talent.

The AI hackathon concludes with a final pitch to industry stakeholders, who evaluate solutions based on practical relevance, feasibility, and execution quality.

Zhi Lin Liu, General Manager of Pacific International Lines (PIL), said, “Judging the GECO Asia x Bitdeer AI Hackathon twice has been a privilege that keeps on giving. Each time, I come in as a judge and leave as a student. Watching teams, largely strangers with diverse skill sets, come together and build meaningful POCs in just two weeks is eye-opening. The quality of what they produced speaks volumes, not only about the participants but also about the people who supported them. Mentorship at this level is a quiet form of leadership, and it shows. The AI Hackathon format itself—Hack to Hire—is an innovation worth celebrating. It is a smarter, more human way to discover talent and solve real problems simultaneously. Congratulations to GECO Asia. This is exactly the kind of forward-thinking platform our ecosystem needs.”

The hackathons are strengthened by a robust partner ecosystem that provides enterprise-grade infrastructure and resources. Industry cloud providers, including Bitdeer AI, supply AI tooling and scalable infrastructure, whilst INFINITY8 contributes six months of co-working space to the winning team, supporting continued development and commercialisation of solutions.

Retainna Lin, Marketing and Commercial Director at Bitdeer AI, said, “Partnering with GECO Asia for the ‘hack-to-hire’ hackathon series has been a fulfilling journey in ecosystem building and talent upskilling. By merging Bitdeer AI’s high-performance compute infrastructure with GECO Asia’s experienced training capabilities, we haven’t just identified top-tier talent, we’ve accelerated the commercial viability of next-gen AI applications. The success of these hackathons proves that the synergy between our two organisations is profound, and we are actively looking at expanding this partnership into broader strategic initiatives.”

Industry recognition for the programme is strong. At the AI Hackathon Final Pitch Session in Kuala Lumpur, Dr Raslan Ahmad, Chairman of the Malaysia Smart Cities Alliance and Fellow of the Academy of Sciences Malaysia, noted that the solutions aligned closely with smart city needs and fostered ecosystem collaboration. In Singapore, leaders from government agencies, AIBP, and participating companies attended final pitch sessions, providing real challenge statements and evaluating submissions for immediate applicability.

Key achievements of Break into AI: Hack to Hire include the delivery of more than 12 AI-powered prototypes across industries, with 27% of the participants securing new roles at GECO Asia or other organisations, and the establishment of a regional AI ecosystem across Singapore and Malaysia that enables enterprises to adopt AI efficiently, responsibly, and at scale.

Kyay Mon, DevOps Engineer at GECO Asia, said, “This AI hackathon let me wear many hats: Product Thinker, Data Tinkerer, and Storyteller whilst solving real business needs. Our mentors guided us on both AI and the soft skills that make teams thrive. My teammates were collaborative and encouraging, giving me space to contribute meaningfully."

Jason Wong, a hackathon participant, said, “This Hackathon has helped me to discover new ways of acquiring knowledge and skills that would not have been possible in an ordinary classroom environment or personal capacity.”

Another participant, Irene Aw, said, “I recently participated in the AI Hackathon organised by GECO Asia and the 2 weeks that ensued were intense, challenging, but also very inspiring! My biggest takeaway was the opportunity to develop an AI-powered solution for a real-life use case. Thankful for the experience and happy that I was inspired to do better and able to showcase how AI could facilitate insight generation and make work more productive!”

The Singapore Business Review Technology Excellence Awards is the most prestigious awards programme for technological innovations, recognising exceptional companies in Singapore that are riding the digital disruption wave and leading the technological revolution and digital journeys of their respective industries.

The Singapore Business Review Technology Excellence Awards is presented by Singapore Business Review Magazine. To view the full list of winners, click here. If you want to join the 2027 awards programme and be acclaimed for your company's outstanding contributions in pursuit of technological innovation, please contact Danica Avila at +(65) 3158 1386 ext 217 or [email protected].