Hackathons showed this former wallflower the real-world impact of software engineering

• The 23-year-old computer science undergraduate at Nanyang Technological University has interned at HTX’s Forensics Centre of Expertise.
• His team was crowned Overall Impact Winner at HacX! Hack for Public Safety 2025.
• Currently on his second HTX internship at the Biometrics & Profiling Centre of Expertise, he is working on a computer vision prototype that analyses behavioural cues in video footage to detect possible associations between people.
• Yunqing appreciates that HTX gives interns ownership to chart their own solutions, with mentors who are receptive to their ideas.

The countdown timer ticked ominously: 10 minutes to steel himself before making his case to an impassive audience. Slick with perspiration despite the draughty air-conditioning, he felt hemmed in by his stiff suit. In his febrile state, he’d shed kilograms over the course of three days.

That excruciating episode while he was in secondary school marked Liu Yunqing’s debut at Model United Nations (UN), an educational simulation where students role-play as diplomats to debate global issues and draft resolutions.

For the self-professed introvert, it was a baptism of fire that touched off his competitive streak – and he hasn’t looked back since.

The thrill of the chase

Currently an intern at HTX’s Biometrics & Profiling Centre of Expertise (CoE), Yunqing thrives on the cut and thrust of the competitive circuit, from round-the-clock case contests run by international firms to hackathons such as HacX! Hack for Public Safety – HTX’s Shark Tank-style competition that tackles real-world challenges faced by the Home Team.

“It gets a bit boring when you grind too hard at schoolwork. Competing helps you to think about things in different ways and is just more fun,” said the computer science undergraduate at Nanyang Technological University (NTU).

Running the gauntlet appears to have paid off. His participation in the 2025 HacX! landed him an internship at HTX’s Forensics CoE, where his prototype for investigating killer litter cases was shortlisted as a finalist in the competition. The tool models possible trajectories of objects flung or dropped from high-rise buildings, visualising paths from different windows to identify the most probable point of origin.

“That was the first time I realised that, wow, what I do here might actually help the public, and I was captivated,” recalled the undergraduate.

Buoyed by this experience, he enlisted his schoolmates to compete in the subsequent HacX!, where they prototyped an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven simulator system to transform the Singapore Police Force’s driving and riding training through immersive technology. Their solution combines a rain-and-wind tunnel for wet-weather driving, an AI-powered scenario engine to train split-second judgement and an AI feedback system that analyses physiological and behavioural data to explain why errors occur.

This time, his team clinched the title of Overall Impact Winner.

In certain respects, the win was a watershed moment following years of doubt as Yunqing had wrestled with whether software engineering could satiate his desire to leave a meaningful imprint on the world.

“Compared to optical engineering that translates to more tangible things like smartphone camera improvements, software engineers typically work on making webpages load faster or designing quantitative algorithms to predict market movements. Is that something I want to do with my life?” recounted Yunqing, whose father is an optical engineer.

As an inquisitive child, he’d accompany his dad – an astronomy buff – on stargazing sessions at a multi-storey carpark. Peering at the cosmos through a hulking telescope sent his imagination into overdrive, and he read voraciously to plumb the mysteries of planets, black holes and nebulae.

That intellectual curiosity extended to literature and philosophy. “In classical Chinese literature, every line is short and simple yet paradoxically conveys so much meaning. Similarly, I’m drawn to simple solutions that are well-built and functional.”

Driven by impact

This love for problem-solving, coupled with his positive experience at the Forensics Centre of Expertise, was why he returned to HTX for another internship, this time with the Biometrics & Profiling CoE.

Here, he’s working on a prototype that uses computer vision to detect behavioural cues and draw possible associations between individuals on video footage, such as whether they may be travelling or acting together.

“Right now, I’m focused on measuring walking speed and distance, which is proving more challenging than expected because it means inferring real-world depth and distance from a two-dimensional frame,” he said.

But solving problems is right in his wheelhouse.

“Figuring things out tickles the right part of my brain, and I get to do that every day at HTX. You can solve one problem then realise you have three more, so you just press on.”

Cerebral rewards aside, the undergraduate particularly appreciates HTX’s egalitarian work culture.

“I don’t have to try hard to make my voice heard, as the engineers are genuinely curious about my take on issues. It doesn’t really feel like a discussion between intern and supervisor, but rather one between engineers figuring out the best way to tackle a problem,” he shared.

Seeing his efforts manifest in practical solutions has been transformative, and he credits supportive HTX mentors who’ve afforded him the latitude to steer his projects independently.

“I am very grateful because this allows me to develop my own sense of intuition and judgement, and I hold such lessons much closer to my heart.”