Bringing 7 Hackathon Contestants Into the Podcast | Champions, Oddballs, and 48-Hour Sleepless Dreamers

🚥 This week on Crossing, we invited all seven contestants from the "Xiaohongshu Hackathon Championship" plus the event's head organizer, Sanbing, onto the podcast.

In this episode, you'll hear these young creators introduce what they built in 48 hours:

⊹ Pocket Guitar, the grand prize winner that drew cheers the moment it appeared on stage at the finals;

⊹ The "Focus Toaster," which literally locks your phone inside a toaster — a project that tries to help people reclaim concentration through an approach that's almost absurd yet utterly contemporary;

⊹ The anime big-head project that wants to give AI and robots "a face of their own";

⊹ And a special voice changer born from real pain points, designed to help people with hearing impairments express themselves and communicate more naturally.

➤ But more moving than the products themselves are the people behind them, and the stories that unfolded at the hackathon.

⊹ You'll hear from someone who, because of one childhood mistake on stage, spent years terrified of being in the spotlight — yet for the first time truly enjoyed it during this demo;

⊹ Someone who says the core thesis of hackathons is actually "masochism," yet it's precisely through that pressure, chaos, loss of control, and pain that creation becomes so intensely joyful;

⊹ And someone who says that after the competition ended, life didn't immediately snap back to normal — they remained suspended in that state of continuous creation.

➤ I've always believed that in hackathons, the process matters more than the outcome.

Winning or not matters, of course. But what matters more is that in a space like this, you meet people as ambitious and as willing to get their hands dirty as you are. You might be meeting for the first time, teaming up for the first time, pulling your first all-nighter together — but many relationships, many peers, many futures often begin in settings exactly like this.

There's a quote I've grown fond of lately: When you're young, go to Paris.

If I were to adapt that for today's AI era, I'd say: Hackathons are our Paris.

Because in an era when creativity is most abundant and change is fastest, this is where you'll encounter the highest density of your kind — people who want to create, who want to change things, who want to build something with their own hands.

And that, perhaps, is the greatest reward of competing.

🎬 Our video podcast is now live on Koji Yang Yuancheng's channels on WeChat Video, Xiaohongshu, Bilibili, YouTube, and other platforms.

📒 The transcript will be published on the Crossing WeChat official account.

🟢 00:00 Xiaohongshu's Sanbing: "We're going to build China's most badass tech event"

🟢 03:19 Jili Xiaoe | Jili Dingdang Focus Toaster: "Laughing my ass off, she came to a hackathon and stuffed her phone into a toaster"

🟢 07:55 Touke Tongxue Remi | Making Anime Big Heads for the World: "Hackathon top star, giving robots a 'face to show people'"

🟢 12:59 Bowen | Pocket Guitar: "Hackathon grand champion, a product that actually makes you want to buy it"

🟢 20:23 Luo Luo Edward | Attune: "Hackathon runner-up, an AI product built by a designer"

🟢 24:09 Chen Jinchu | Cyber Tightening Curse: "This hackathon wasn't just for programmers"

🟢 28:33 Queenie | Vibethon Code Arena: "Hackathon crowd favorite, why does she want to 'eliminate' hackathons?"

🟢 32:16 Pengcheng Shuoyu Training | Conan-Style Special Voice Changer: "The hackathon is short, life is long — I want to speak up now"

🟢 37:31 Koji: "Hackathons are the Paris of the AI era"

🟢 43:57 Xiaohongshu's Sanbing: "In the AI era, we're all the same age."

Subscribe to Crossing: 🚦 We track the industry shifts and new entrepreneurial opportunities brought by the new wave of AI technology.

🚦 Crossing is Steve Jobs's metaphor for Apple — standing at the intersection of technology and liberal arts, where great products are born. AI is transforming every industry. We seek out, interview, and bring together a new generation of AI entrepreneurs and active participants in the AI era. Together with them, we explore and embrace the new changes, the new possibilities.

👦🏻 Host Koji: I founded Crossing and launched AI Hacker House, a community space for a new generation of AI entrepreneurs. I serve as Venture Partner at ZhenFund. I believe technology, especially AI, represents the greatest value-creation opportunity of our generation. Koji on Jike | Koji's website

👧🏻 Host Ronghui: I co-founded Crossing. I've worked at a dollar-denominated VC firm and spent five years as a Silicon Valley correspondent, following tech development and business stories. Feel free to reach out and chat with me. Ronghui on Jike