Dell InnovateFest 2025 to Tackle Mental Health Concerns among Teenagers and Caregivers of PWIDs
- Inno-Thought Team
- Oct 1, 2025
- 3 min read
On September 29, Dell Technologies (NYSE:DELL) held the grand finals of its third annual Dell InnovateFest, an inter-tertiary hackathon dedicated to empowering the next generation of technologists. Mr Desmond Lee, Minister for Education and Minister-in-Charge of Social Services Integration, attended the event as Guest-of-Honour. Mr Lee delivered the opening address and presented the awards to the winning teams.
This year's competition, in partnership with Movement for the Intellectually Disabled of Singapore (MINDS) and Singapore Association for Mental Health (SAMH), challenged students to develop innovative, technology-driven solutions to address mental health concerns for teenagers and caregivers of Persons with Intellectual Disabilities (PWIDs).
This aligns closely with Singapore's National Mental Health and Well-being Strategy. According to the Ipsos Global Health Service Monitor 2023 report, mental health is now the leading health concern in Singapore and across 31 countries. The recent National Youth Mental Health Study found that 1 in 3 Singaporean youth (aged 15–35) reported severe or extremely severe symptoms of depression or anxiety and 25.3% of young adults (aged 18-29) experienced poor mental health in 2024.
Building on the success of previous years, this hackathon continues Dell's commitment to harnessing technology for social good. The teams were tasked to create practical applications using cutting-edge technologies such as AI, GenAI and cloud-native platforms, as well as technologies from solutions providers like Microsoft, NVIDIA® and NCS, supported on Dell infrastructure, to foster a more inclusive and resilient society. They were also mentored by experts from the Dell Technologies Asia Pacific and Japan AI Innovation Hub (AIIH) equipping them with future-ready skills in the area of AI engineering, platform engineering, machine learning operations, containerisation and cloud-native architecture.
The newly launched hub is focused on AI transformation, enablement and leadership, aligned to Singapore's National AI Strategy 2.0. Partnering with the local polytechnics and autonomous universities, the Hub aims to integrate essential AI skills into existing curricula and train 10,000 students and mid-career professionals by 2025. This hands-on approach mirrors Singapore's emphasis on building a people-first AI-fluent workforce, outlined during the National Day Rally 2025. Through tackling real-world social challenges using AI technologies, students gain practical experience that contributes both to personal growth and societal progress.
Dell InnovateFest 2025 brought together 55 finalists from 10 polytechnics and autonomous universities1 across Singapore. Finalists were chosen, either from school-level competitions such as Dell InnovateDash and Dell Cloud Native Award or nominated by their lecturers to represent their institutions.
The competition culminated in a grand finals on 29 September 2025 at the National Gallery Singapore, where finalist teams presented their solutions to a panel of judges. The final competition provided a unique platform for students to apply their technical skills to real-world problems, receive mentorship from industry experts and compete for a grand prize of SGD 10,000 for each of the winning polytechnic and university teams.
The team from Ngee Ann Polytechnic, with their innovative solution MindEase, and the team from Singapore Management University, with their mobile application Interstellar, emerged as the winners of the polytechnic and university tracks, respectively.
1 Participating autonomous universities and polytechnics include Nanyang Technology University, National University of Singapore, Singapore Institute of Technology, Singapore Management University, Singapore University of Technology & Design, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Nanyang Polytechnic, Republic Polytechnic, Singapore Polytechnic and Temasek Polytechnic.
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