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Northland Hackathon is a 100% volunteer-run, completely free hackathon built for students who've been left behind by the system — especially in rural Minnesota. Here's why we exist.
Northland Hackathon was founded by Luke Heane — a Minnesotan who grew up in rural northern Minnesota and saw firsthand how hard it was for students outside the cities to access quality tech education.
Luke started the hackathon in 2022 with a simple belief: the same students who can get to a big tech company in San Francisco or New York can also thrive coming from Grand Rapids, Duluth, or anywhere else in the Midwest — if someone gives them a shot.
He's run Northland Hackathon every year since, growing it into Minnesota's largest free student hackathon — entirely on volunteer power, late nights, and a lot of belief in Midwest kids.
Founder · Northland Hackathon
Minnesota ranks last in the United States for offering public computer science classes — just 35% of schools offer any CS education, compared to a 57% national average. Source: MN Tech
This isn't just an abstract statistic. It means that right now, thousands of Minnesota students — especially in rural communities — are graduating without ever writing a line of code, designing a UI, or building anything on the internet.
The careers that pay well, the industries that are growing, the tools that run the modern world — students are being locked out of them before they ever had a fair shot to decide if they wanted in.
And it's disproportionately hitting students outside the metro. Students in the Twin Cities can access coding bootcamps, enrichment programs, and tech-connected schools. Students in northern and rural Minnesota often can't.
35% of MN schools offer CS
vs. 57% national average
Rural students most affected
Outside the Twin Cities metro, access drops dramatically
Tech is the most accessible high-paying career path
No degree required. But you need exposure first.
There are other programs in Minnesota. Here's how Northland is different — and why we think the difference matters.
Most CS ed programs teach from a textbook. We don't. There are no slides, no tests, no grades. We drop students into a team and say "build something." The learning is baked into the doing.
A student in Grand Rapids, MN can participate the same as a student in Minneapolis. No travel. No money required. Just a laptop and an internet connection.
Mentors are working engineers, designers, and PMs from companies like Google, Amazon, Square, and DroneDeploy — not teachers. They bring real career context, not just technical help.
Students build an actual, working project in 7 hours and present it. Not a demo of something half-finished. Something real. The sense of ownership from that is what makes students want to keep going.
Every mentor, every organizer, every person who answers your question is a volunteer. Nobody here is paid. We do this because we believe in it.
There are no application fees, no premium tiers, no hidden costs. Funded entirely by sponsors who believe in the mission. Every student gets free swag mailed to them, no matter what.
Northland Hackathon is built entirely by people who volunteered their time because they care about this problem. No paid staff. No corporate machine behind it. Just people.
Our volunteers include software engineers at top companies, founders, data scientists, professors, and people who just remember what it was like to not know where to start in tech — and want to make that path easier for the next generation.
Want to volunteer as a mentor or judge? We're always looking for engineers, designers, and PMs who want to give back.
Are you a student interested in helping organize? We love getting participants involved behind the scenes too.
Companies can sponsor at any level to support the event and get their brand in front of the next generation of Midwest builders.
The tech industry talks a lot about diversity, equity, and access. But most of the programs designed to help students get into tech are still geographically anchored in metros.
Northland Hackathon is remote by design. A student in Hibbing, Brainerd, Bemidji, or Worthington can sit down on a Saturday morning and have the same experience as a student in Minneapolis — same mentors, same energy, same shot.
That's not an accident. It's the whole point.
We partner with the Alworth Scholarship to support students from northeastern Minnesota who want to pursue engineering and technology careers. If you're from NE Minnesota, check it out.
Sign up for the 2026 hackathon, volunteer, or reach out to learn more.