Hosted at the Goodnotes office in Hong Kong on July 11–12, 2025, the MentorMates Hackathon brought together students, educators, designers, and builders to tackle real challenges in education. In 48 hours, 73 participants turned lived experience into 21 working concepts—and discovered that meaningful innovation does not require a traditional technical background.
73
participants
21
projects built
15+
countries represented
82%
would recommend it
A purpose-driven format
Teams worked across three focused tracks: AI and special education, AI and workforce learning, and AI and traditional education. The structure narrowed the problem space without prescribing the answer, giving teams room to experiment while keeping their work grounded in a clear human need.
Mentors and speakers brought perspectives from education, industry, healthcare, and design. Goodnotes employees went beyond sponsorship by opening their workplace, sharing the company’s journey, and coaching teams throughout the build.
- Participants chose problems they personally cared about.
- Accessible tools such as Cursor and Magic Loops lowered the barrier to building.
- Continuous feedback helped teams move beyond generic chatbot concepts.
Projects with a clear reason to exist
The strongest projects combined technical ambition with a close understanding of the people they aimed to serve. TeachWise, the overall winner, helped educators practise diagnostic questioning through simulated student profiles. Math Buddy turned learning activities for students with ADHD into movement-based challenges.
- Memmy created an adaptive Python tutor for different learning styles.
- Learnerator focused on rapid workforce upskilling for unfamiliar tasks.
- Teams consulted educators and special-education practitioners while refining their ideas.
Value beyond the weekend
For participants, the event made building feel accessible and gave them new collaborators across disciplines and countries. For Goodnotes, it created a hands-on talent and research environment: 21 prototypes, direct conversations with emerging builders, and authentic visibility inside the education-technology community.
The most promising result was the multiplier effect. Participants did not only ask when the next hackathon would happen; several volunteered to organize or mentor one themselves. That progression—from attendee to builder to ecosystem leader—is how an event becomes a movement.
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MentorMates designs hands-on hackathons and AI workshops that turn important problems into testable ideas.
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