{"slug":"hack-the-north-2025","name":"Hack the North","edition":"2025","year":2025,"organizer":"Hack the North (student-run, University of Waterloo)","kind":"student-major-league","format":"in-person","region":"North America","countries":["CA"],"city":"Waterloo","venue":"University of Waterloo, E5/E6/E7","start_date":"2025-09-12","end_date":"2025-09-14","duration_hours":36,"participants":872,"teams":null,"team_size":null,"theme":null,"tracks":[],"prizes":[{"name":"Hack the North 2025: Finalists","winners_count":12,"reward":"Finalist round","criteria":[]},{"name":"Cohere","winners_count":3,"reward":"1st $500/member + $4,000 credits; 2nd $100/member + $2,000 credits; 3rd $1,000 credits","criteria":["wow-factor","sponsor-api-use","technical-depth","originality"]},{"name":"Warp: Best Developer Tool","winners_count":null,"reward":"Keyboards per member","criteria":["impact","wow-factor","technical-depth","originality","design-ux"]},{"name":"Y Combinator: Unicorn Prize","winners_count":3,"reward":"$2,000 + guaranteed YC interview","criteria":["business-potential"]},{"name":"Graphite: Engineering Dream Team","winners_count":null,"reward":"AirPods per member","criteria":["technical-depth","engineering-practice"]},{"name":"Messy real-world data agents (sponsor)","winners_count":2,"reward":"$10K / $2K","criteria":["technical-depth","originality","impact"],"notes":"Agents that act on unstructured, conflicting, noisy data."},{"name":"Cua: Best State-of-the-Art Computer-Use Agent","winners_count":1,"reward":"Guaranteed YC partner interview","criteria":[],"notes":"Scored on an OSWorld-Verified benchmark rather than by a panel."},{"name":"Cerebras: Best Use of Cerebras","winners_count":1,"reward":"Keyboards per member","criteria":["sponsor-api-use","originality","impact"]},{"name":"CSE: Network Traffic Exploration","winners_count":3,"reward":null,"criteria":[]},{"name":"Solana: Best Consumer Payment Experience","winners_count":null,"reward":"Grants","criteria":["technical-depth","impact","design-ux","sponsor-api-use"]}],"prize_count_note":"28 non-cash prizes listed on Devpost; the entries above are the ones with stated criteria or notable shape.","judging":{"criteria":[{"lens":"wow-factor","label":"WOW factor","description":"Stands out and leaves a lasting impression; achieves its goal exceptionally in any dimension."},{"lens":"technical-depth","label":"Technical ability","description":"Technical depth and advanced knowledge rated favorably."},{"lens":"originality","label":"Originality","description":"New problem, new approach, or something unique even if it solves no problem."},{"lens":"design-ux","label":"Design","description":"User-friendly, intuitive and engaging for its audience."}],"judge_profile_summary":"31 judges: founders/CEOs of startups, CTOs and heads of engineering/product, two Y Combinator partners/staff, VC partners, a design leader, a robotics VP and an online personality. Heavy founder/builder weighting.","judges":[{"name":"Advait Maybhate","org":"Warp","role":"Software Engineer"},{"name":"Albert Chen","org":"Two Small Fish","role":"Partner"},{"name":"Alexei Schiopu","org":"Pallet","role":"Head of EPD"},{"name":"Alroy Almeida","org":"Velocity","role":"Director"},{"name":"Andrew Miklas","org":"Y Combinator","role":"General Partner"},{"name":"Artem Alekhin","org":"Voiceform","role":"Co-founder & CTO"},{"name":"Brad Murray","org":"Beeper","role":"Head of Engineering"},{"name":"Braden Ream","org":"Voiceflow","role":"Co-founder & CEO"},{"name":"Brandon Moak","org":"Embark Technology","role":"Co-founder & CTO"},{"name":"Chantal Jandard","org":"Autodesk","role":"Design Leader"},{"name":"Donald Jewkes","org":"MotionHall (prev.)","role":"Product Lead"},{"name":"Deon Nicholas","org":"Forethought","role":"Founder & President"},{"name":"Edward Kim","org":"Cohere","role":"Senior Manager of Technical Staff"},{"name":"Eric Diep","org":"Manifold","role":"Founder & CEO"},{"name":"Ethan Ding","org":"TextQL","role":"Founder & CEO"},{"name":"Eve Bouffard","org":"Y Combinator","role":"Associate & Product Designer"},{"name":"Gautam Gupta","org":"Highbeam","role":"Co-founder & CTO"},{"name":"Jacob Willemsma","org":"ETHGlobal","role":"VP Partnerships"},{"name":"Jen Dewalt","org":"Zube","role":"Founder"},{"name":"Joieta Choudhury","org":"Boardy","role":"Head of Product"},{"name":"Joowon Kim","org":"X","role":"Online Personality"},{"name":"Kris Braun","org":"runQL","role":"CTO"},{"name":"Linden Tibbets","org":"IFTTT","role":"Founder & CEO"},{"name":"Marcelo Cortes","org":"Faire","role":"Co-founder & Chief Architect"},{"name":"Mike Kirkup","org":"EnPowered","role":"CTO"},{"name":"Nabil Fahel","org":"StartupSoft","role":"SVP Partnerships"},{"name":"Parth Sareen","org":"Ollama","role":"Software Engineer"},{"name":"Ralph Hempel","org":"Edwards Safety (prev. LEGO)","role":"Firmware Staff Engineer"},{"name":"Ryan Gariepy","org":"Rockwell Automation","role":"VP Robotics"},{"name":"Sam Pasupalak","org":"Skyfall AI","role":"Co-founder & CEO"},{"name":"Tom Alterman","org":"Notable","role":"Head of Product"}],"notes":"WOW factor is listed first in both the main rubric and several sponsor rubrics (Cohere, Warp)."},"required_tech":[],"sponsors":["Amazon AWS","Cerebras","Cohere","CSE","Cua","Databricks","ETHGlobal","Federato","Genesys","Graphite","Groq","Martian","QNX","RBC","Ripple/XRPL","Shopify","Snap Spectacles","Solana","Vapi","Warp","Windsurf","Y Combinator","Google Gemini","MLH"],"submission_requirements":["Devpost submission","Accepted participants only"],"results_status":"partial","roster_coverage":"partial","entries":[{"name":"DUM-E","project":"dum-e"},{"name":"SpeakEasy","project":"speakeasy"},{"name":"S-KBD67","project":"s-kbd67"},{"name":"ROSS - Remote Operated Semantic Sketching","project":"ross"}],"organizer_takeaways":[],"sources":[{"url":"https://hackthenorth2025.devpost.com/","kind":"official-event-page","retrieved_at":"2026-09-14","note":"Dates, participants, prizes, judges, judging criteria."},{"url":"https://hackthenorth2025.devpost.com/project-gallery","kind":"devpost-gallery","retrieved_at":"2026-09-14"},{"url":"https://hackthenorth.com/","kind":"official-event-page","retrieved_at":"2026-09-14","note":"2026 site features S-KBD67, ROSS and DUM-E as past projects."}],"curator_notes":"Only 4 of the 12 finalists verified on project pages so far. Gallery lists 24 projects on page 1; per-prize winners not yet mapped."}