More than 250 pre-university students participated in the 2025 Hydrogen Innovation Challenge to explore Singapore’s Green Energy Pathway
The Hydrogen Innovation Challenge returns for its second edition, this time with the theme “Singapore’s Green Energy Pathway”. This year’s competition aimed to benefit an even wider audience by opening up to all pre-university students in Singapore, including students from polytechnics, junior colleges, and other institutes.
The first round of the competition, held on June 5 at NUS College of Design and Engineering, featured a 40 minute pen and paper test to test students on their knowledge of the theme (after equipping them with a study guide to learn from). 90 teams of 2-4 from 18 institutes, totalling 258 participants, battled it out that morning.
The quiz had multiple choice questions, a short answer section, and a particularly challenging crossword puzzle (fun fact: only one team managed to solve the crossword puzzle completely! Kudos to them).
15 teams with the top scores advanced to the second round of the competition, the Performance round, which consisted of two parts. First, participants created infographics on a topic of their choosing related to the theme, which were then posted on our Instagram to spread information on the topic to the public. We were blown away by the students’ creativity, they discussed wide-ranging ideas for Singapore’s energy future, from hydrogen (our bread and butter) to nuclear reactors or even algae farms. Participants worked hard to promote their ideas to their communities and beyond for one week of public voting, leading up to the final event of the competition. You can still read all the entries on our Instagram @chi_at_nus today!
Finally, the participants returned to NUS on June 29 to present their infographic contents in a performance that they chose the format of, with points awarded for creativity and content. CHI Director Prof. Yan Ning opened the Final Round event, and we were honoured to have three experts on green energy and sustainability as our judges: Prof. Chan Siew Hwa (NTU), Prof. Thorsten Wohland (NUS), and Prof. Zhou Kang (Singapore Institute of Technology).
Each team had a unique take on the theme, and we were treated to many fun performances including an app demo, a Shark Tank-style skit, and multiple rap battles. After each performance, the participants valiantly answered tough questions from our expert judges, surely giving them a glimpse at the real intricacies of executing any green energy plans!
Following a tough deliberation with the judges (the results were quite a close call!), team HydoGen-Z of Hwa Chong Institution emerged as the winning team of this year’s challenge! Congratulations! Second place winners include team The Environmentalist (Hwa Chong Institution) and CHI Chomp (NUS High School of Math and Science), and third place winners are teams Cations and HydrogenGoesBOOM of Raffles Girls’ School, along with teams GOF (NUS High School of Math and Science) and Ballerina Cappuccina (Nanyang Girls’ High School). Hwa Chong Institution took home the School Prize for their students’ excellent performance across multiple teams.
We’d like to heartily congratulate our winning teams once more for their excellent explorations into Singapore’s Green Energy Pathway, and thank all of the students who have enthusiastically participated in this event. We hope that all involved have learned something from the experience and that the next iterations of the Hydrogen Innovation Challenge continue to improve and inspire more towards the green energy pathway!
