Haoyu Zhu

Haoyu Zhu (朱浩宇, "Ryan") is a 19-year-old entrepreneur from Hangzhou, profiled by 暗涌Waves and elsewhere as the organizer of what became China's largest hackathon . He started as a high schooler in 2024, using his sister's ID to attend foreign university hackathons before deciding to launch his own event, AdventureX, after a failure at the CTB international competition . The hackathon was built on contrarian principles: no entry fees, free accommodation and prizes, a five-day duration, and an age cap of 26 to exclude "startup veterans" and "big factory screw-workers" . Zhu funded it through a snowball strategy of borrowed credibility—starting with ZhenFund's partnership, then leveraging that to secure Lakeside Center's venue and other sponsors—while running what he openly called a "grassroots team" .

By late 2025, Zhu had spent five months out of public view before re-emerging with Photon AI, a project packaging AI agents as iMessage and WhatsApp-style interfaces . His self-assessment as ENFP/ENTJ and his "street smart" hustle in pitching 25 top-tier dollar-fund investors were noted by elsewhere, though one investor who had publicly praised youthful ambition privately told him the venture was "not as cool as AdventureX" . Zhu's broader pattern, as 暗涌Waves framed it, is the "time hunger" of young AI founders who treat speed as their only moat against industry veterans .