Innovation in 48 Hours: DKU’s First Hackathon with Momen
On September 20–21, 2025, Duke Kunshan University (DKU) hosted its first 48-hour hackathon under the theme Technology for Community Development. Forty students — many with no prior coding experience — came together to design solutions for real challenges facing the Kunshan community.
The energy was electric: late-night brainstorming, sticky notes covering walls, and teams pushing bold ideas into working prototypes. What stood out most wasn’t just the technology — it was the creativity, determination, and courage of students daring to turn ideas into reality.
What’s a Hackathon, Anyway?
A hackathon isn’t just about coding. It’s an intense sprint where people from diverse backgrounds — students, designers, and even non-technical participants — collaborate to solve real-world problems in a limited timeframe.
At DKU, teams tackled five community-centered challenges:
Improving elderly care and quality of life
Closing the employment gap with new learning tools
Building accessibility for people with disabilities
Reducing illegal garbage dumping
Streamlining government services
By Sunday, every team was expected to submit a working demo and a pitch deck. While the top prizes reached 1,000 RMB per person, the true reward was the hands-on experience of building something real.
Hacking Smarter with Momen
For many participants, the first worry was: “I can’t code.” That’s where Momen stepped in. As a partner and sponsor, Momen’s mission was simple — empower non-technical students to prototype and ship fully functional apps.
Every participant received $50 in Momen credits, unlocking the Basic Plan and 6 million AI points to experiment with models like GPT-4, GPT-5, and Gemini.
Momen is a full-stack no-code platform. From front-end to backend, databases, workflows, APIs, and AI agent builders, teams could create robust, scalable applications without writing code — essentially using Momen as a Backend-as-a-Service (BaaS).
Paired with Lovable for fast, interactive UI and Cursor for AI-assisted coding, students could focus on ideas and validation rather than debugging or boilerplate work — moving from concept to MVP in hours, not weeks.
Keynote: From Idea to MVP in 48 Hours
On Saturday morning, Yaokai Jiang, CEO of Momen, delivered a keynote titled “From Idea to MVP in 48 Hours: Hack Smarter with AI + No Code.”
He shared a practical playbook for rapid innovation:
Validate ideas using AI research tools like ChatGPT and Gemini.
Interview simulated users to uncover insights quickly.
Prototype designs with Figma and AI-driven requirement analyzers.
Build MVPs using Lovable (UI), Momen (backend & AI), and Cursor (coding assist).
The message was clear: AI and no-code tools aren’t shortcuts — they’re equalizers, giving students from all backgrounds the ability to build meaningful products.
Projects Built with Momen
By the end of the weekend, all eight teams delivered working prototypes. Two standout examples demonstrated Momen’s impact:
Team Hayward (Momen + Cursor): Built a career-path platform to help Kunshan residents — including seniors — discover new job opportunities. Momen powered the backend and AI resume generation, turning personal data into tailored work and learning suggestions.
Team SkillBridge (Momen + Lovable): Created a reemployment platform connecting citizens with local initiatives. Using Momen’s workflows, database, and APIs, the app offered job matching, course recommendations, and personalized learning plans — all built without heavy coding. Momen’s new AI data model copilot made it even faster to scale complex logic reliably.
Momen served as a reliable visual backend, while Lovable and Cursor provided fast, interactive front-end and AI-assisted coding. Together, this stack allowed non-technical students to focus on creativity and execution without getting lost in debugging or wasting credits.
Why It Matters
At the start of the weekend, many students weren’t sure they could build a working prototype. By Sunday, every team had something tangible to show — not just slides, but real, functioning demos. That transformation from “I can’t” to “We built this” was the true achievement.
For DKU, the hackathon helped spark a culture of building, where creativity meets real community impact. For students, it showed that with the right tools, imagination can overcome technical barriers. And for Momen, it was proof that combining no-code and AI can make hackathons more inclusive, practical, and outcome-driven — giving anyone the power to turn bold ideas into reality.
Final Word
The weekend proved how quickly real products can be built when ideas, courage, and the right tools come together. Congratulations to all the teams — and here’s to more weekends where students, communities, and technology shape the future side by side.
Explore Momen’s education benefits for students at https://momen.app/education
