HackOMania 2026 Pre-Event: Learning at NETS

I didn’t go to HackOMania 2026 to compete in the hackathon. There were two reasons: first, 24 hours without sleep sounds horrible; second, I couldn’t find enough teammates. Instead, I joined the pre-event at NETS simply to learn, to listen, and to see what new ideas were being shared. Honestly, it turned out to be a rewarding decision.

Behind the Scenes at NETS

The day began with a talk from the NETS director. I’ve used PayNow countless times, but I never realized NETS was the one behind its implementation. Even more surprising was hearing that MAS relies on their systems. It felt like discovering the hidden infrastructure that keeps Singapore’s financial ecosystem running smoothly.

ClickHouse’s Agent Demo

Next came the ClickHouse workshop. Their employee showed a demo of an agent that could generate a graphic summary of public GitHub users. Watching data transform into vivid visuals in real time was eye-opening.

Google’s ADK Session

The Google engineer’s presentation on ADK was another highlight. ADK looks interesting and useful for designing agentic applications that make multiple agents work together effectively.

My Reflection

Even though I wasn’t there to hack, I walked away with new knowledge and fresh curiosity. NETS gave me a glimpse into the backbone of payments, ClickHouse showed me the creative side of analytics, and Google opened the door to multi-agent systems.