Security by Design: Ship Fast Without Shipping Holes - A Breakfast Huddle
Date & Time
THU 12 NOV
Capacity
Open
About
Every builder wants to ship fast and reach as many people as possible, that's the right instinct! And these days, "builder" means more than career engineers. Whether you're writing every line yourself or vibecoding your product with AI tools, you're shipping real software that real people trust with their data. But speed has a shadow: the auth you bolted on last-minute, the API key the AI hardcoded "just for now," the customer data sitting one misconfigured setting away from the front page. Security debt is quiet until it isn't and by then it's an investor walking away from diligence, a regulator asking questions, or a breach notice you have to send your users. The tools got easier; the stakes didn't. This workshop is about designing security from the start, not patching it in after an incident and it's built for everyone who ships, no computer-science degree required. We'll keep the jargon low and the practical takeaways high. We'll cover how to design your product to minimize what can go wrong, cleanly separate risks, and set up clear controls and visibility. Topics include threat modeling for early-stage products (in plain language), secure-by-default architecture, secrets and access management, and a pre-launch security checklist you can actually use. Bring your product — vibecoded, hand-built, or somewhere in between. You'll be grouped with founders at your stage, solo founder, small team, or full engineering org, and our CTOs will pressure-test it and coach you on the risks that actually apply to you. You'll walk away with a concrete, stage-specific list of what to fix, in language you can act on whether or not you write code yourself. New to the technical side? You're exactly who we built this for. Come curious. Note: Our CTOs volunteer their time. To keep this event free of sponsors and ads, we ask for a small token fee to cover breakfast, refundable up to 1 day before the event. Agenda 10am: Registration 10:15am: Keynote 10:30am: 5 Breakout Circles with CTOs 11:30am: Networking 12pm: End Keynote Speaker: Dr. Gaurav Manek is CTO of Ocellivision, an ASTAR deep-tech startup revolutionizing cancer surgery. A Carnegie-Mellon trained scientist, he has taught hands-on AI workshops to 500+ practitioners across the ASTAR research community and local universities. He regularly speaks to founders and developers on building production-grade AI stacks; from observability and cost control to killing tech debt with code gates and adversarial review. He designs and builds AI systems that hold up under real-world scrutiny. CTO facilitators: Sha-Mayn Teh, Fractional CTO, Potluck Tech Gaurav Manek, Ocellivision CTO Jesse Sng, Core member Techies Liyana Sulaiman, Co-founder and CPTO of Pollen Shariff Raffi, Founder and CPO @ Herding Codes Rajat Goyal, Co-founder, The Builder Course Jayantika Soni, Co-founder & CTO, RESYNC 🤝 About the Organisers 🏢 JDI Group JDI Group is a Venture Catalyst driving forward the future of innovation. Since 2016, we’ve jump-started the exponential growth of innovative companies – from FinTech and e-commerce to education and enterprise technology. We empower startups and enterprises with strategic knowledge and resources to scale disruptive innovation from Asia to the world.
🤝 About the Community Partners 🏢 Lorong AI Lorong AI brings together government, industry, and research to build Singapore’s AI ecosystem. A collaborative hub for AI practitioners to connect, innovate, and shape the future of AI in Singapore through curated programs and a supportive community. 🏢 Techies We are a 3rd space for devs, dev adjacent and people who want to get deep into technical conversations. 🏢 Potluck Technologies Potluck Technologies is a fractional CTO and CPO firm that embeds with early-stage and mission-driven startups. We are former Google engineering and product leaders — Sha-Mayn Teh led engineering teams at Google Translate, Google Beijing, AdWords, and ed-tech marketplace TeachersPayTeachers; Yu Chen led product across Google Search, Maps, and Internet Connectivity, and two coding bootcamps. We work inside teams, not as outside advisors. The goal of every engagement is to make ourselves unnecessary. 🏢 The Builder Course The Builder Course is a practical learning platform for people building with AI. Through live, cohort-based courses and hands-on workshops, participants turn real workflows into working AI products, learning how to frame the right problem, build responsibly, and evaluate what they ship. It’s for builders who want to move beyond demos and create useful, reliable products.