ABOUT

Built by students,
for students.

Frontier Cascadia is a one-day hackathon for high school students in the Pacific Northwest. Twelve hours, real software, judged by people who ship for a living. This is who runs it and why it exists.

501(c)(3) public charity Seattle, Washington

Why this exists

The story is pretty simple. Many high school students in the Pacific Northwest are genuinely good at building things. They have ideas. They're technical. What they don't have is the space, the time, the tools, or the chance to sit in a room with people who've actually shipped products and learn from them. Most of the time, the gap between a good idea and a real project is just a runway.

Frontier Cascadia is how we're closing that gap. On September 12, 2026, 200+ high school students from across the PNW get 12 hours at the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington to build real software from scratch. Entry is free. Prizes run $10k+, from a grand prize to free credits to company and track specific awards. Projects get judged by engineers and professionals from Seattle's tech community on a real rubric.

No participation trophies. No grade inflation. The standard is whether it works.

Leadership

Nikhil Mahesh

Founder & Executive Director

Co-founder of HydraSmart, an AI-driven hydration tracker for pregnant and postpartum women, with a provisional patent filed pro bono via SeedIP. ML Software Engineering Intern at VoiceGain.AI, working on healthcare voicebot systems. Computer vision research scholar at Pioneer Academics under Prof. Susan Fox.

Outside of software, a Gold TOC Bid holder and National Circuit quarterfinalist at the Cal Invitational (Berkeley) in Extemporaneous Speaking.

Board of directors

Frontier Cascadia is governed by a board of operators and researchers who have built real things and know what it takes to run a program like this properly.

Roshini Jain

VP, Clinical Research & Operations at UroMems

Leads scientific strategy and clinical execution for next-generation implantable medical devices. Global experience scaling research programs from concept all the way to patient, across regulatory environments where the work has to be right the first time.

Dr. Pronita Mehrotra

Founder, innovation tools & learning

Builds tools and services that help organizations and learners become measurably more innovative. Previously at Microsoft, now focused on scaling creativity and innovation at the institutional level, which is the same problem this hackathon is pointed at from the other end.

Dr. Prashant Shiralkar

Founder, AI & knowledge

Works at the frontier of AI and knowledge in a post-authenticity era. Researches how AI systems read people and careers, and where those systems get it wrong.

Team

William Chen

VP of Finance

Jayesh Singhal

VP of Operations

Award-winning technologist and founder of Helping Hats, a philanthropy tackling food insecurity. Won top honors at FutureHacks 2026, defeating 268 competitors from 31 countries. Earned national acclaim from the Bill of Rights Institute's MyImpact Challenge.

Preston Su

VP of Outreach

The nonprofit

Frontier Cascadia is a 501(c)(3) public charity based in Washington. Registration is free for every participant, and the event runs on sponsorship and donations. If you want to support it, or you're a company interested in sponsoring, use the contact form.

Get in touch

Questions about the event, the organization, or getting involved as a judge, mentor, or volunteer all go to the same place: the contact form. Parents and guardians are welcome to reach out too.

Before the event, everyone should read the code of conduct.

Built by students,for students.