Women Who Code 2017 Year in Review
Written by WWCode HQ
"2017 was an amazing year for Women Who Code in which we connected with people and organization around the world to build a better tech industry, and were incredibly inspired and awed by the efforts and achievements of our WWCode Leaders and Members."
– Alaina Percival, WWCode CEO and Board Chair.
Women Who Code is the world's largest nonprofit dedicated to supporting career aged women in tech. In 2017 we continued this work, growing our membership, expanding to new locations, developing more leadership and training programs, and building more tools to help women succeed in their tech careers. As we move forward with this mission, it is also important that we look back, and celebrate some of the successes that we’ve had over the past year.
More Members of WWCode Than Ever Before!
In 2017 Women Who Code reached the 100,000 member mark, officially making us the largest women in tech nonprofit in the world. This is important because the more people that we connect with, the stronger the overall community grows and the better we are able to help one another. This is also fueled by the fact that 97% of our members say that they would tell a friend about the organization, making word of mouth our most powerful tool for growth.
Bringing WWCode to New Cities Around the World!
Last year we had the honor of bringing Women Who Code Networks to 9 new cities. These are groups that now support their local tech communities, and act as beacons of learning and inspiration to the women living in those areas.
- Women Who Code Partners With Sony Interactive Entertainment to Launch San Diego Network
- WWCode Partners With Capital One to Relaunch Chicago Tech Network
- Women Who Code Launches in Raleigh Durham, NC
- Women Who Code Launches in Chennai, India
- Women Who Code Launches in Edinburgh, Scotland
- Women Who Code Establishes Local Network in Kyiv, Ukraine
- Women Who Code Launches in Pune, India
- Women Who Code Launches Tech Network in Cleveland, Ohio
- Women Who Code Launches in Singapore
WWCose Singapore Launch 2017
Supporting the Leaders of Today and Tomorrow
The Women Who Code Leadership Program supports over 500 of our members by giving them the opportunity to gain valuable experience in managerial roles, connect with industry influencers, and level up their professional image. These Network Directors, Leads, and Evangelists help to organize and run events, workshops, and training sessions, get the word out about our cause, secure valuable event space and accommodations and work with the community to improve the practices of local companies and organization.
In 2017 Women Who Code promoted 80 new Directors, some of whom were part of existing Networks, and others who helped to launch new Networks as founding Directors. We also promoted several hundred others into Lead and Evangelist positions.
Workshops, Open Talks, Conferences, Hackathons, and so much more!
In 2017 Women Who Code held more than 1,900 free technical, career, and leadership training events. This includes both regional weekly events, as well as major international affairs featuring speakers and attendees from around the world. These incredible events were made possible thanks to the 30,000 volunteer hours contributed by our members and Leaders.
- 2017 Conference Series
- WWCode CONNECT Bangalore
- WE Rise ATL Conference
- The WWCode Manila Hackathon
- WWCode Birmingham Magic City Hacks
- WWCode ATL Hackathon
- WWCode Portland 3rd Anniversary
- WWCode Awards
WWCode CONNECT 2017.
Tickets and Scholarships for Career Development
Women Who Code is dedicated to helping women develop the skills they need to reach the next level in their careers. To this end, we have given away over $1.2M in university and code school scholarships and $1M in technical conference tickets. This has directly led to members getting promotions, finding jobs, and starting companies. Here are just a few of those stories from the past year.
Louise Clark – Winner of a full-tuition scholarship to Capella University’s online BS in Information Technology, Software Development program.
"To be able to go back to school is a gift. It will provide me the intellectual foundation for what I’m doing at my job. And I love being a student; I love learning. I could learn forever! But financially, I wouldn’t have been able to go for a degree right now due to the years of being financially insecure."
Allison Hegel – Winner of a scholarship to Metis’ Live Online Intro to Data Science course.
“I had a blast applying what I learned in the Metis course to real data. I chose the Yelp Open Dataset to work with because I was interested in what kinds of attributes people value most in a business. I built a regression model to predict a business’ star rating using its attributes, like whether it caters or has bike parking.”
Tanya Ruth Selvog – Winner of a scholarship for A Cloud Guru’s Certified Solution Architect certification course through WWCode.
“A Cloud Guru sponsored a tech talk in partnership with Women Who Code Austin. All attendees of the event received a voucher to A Cloud Guru’s Certified Solutions Architect certification course. Since I’m new to programming, I went to the tech talk for the sole purpose of networking and I was uninterested in learning about cloud computing. (I believed that cloud computing was too advanced for me, so I assumed I wouldn’t understand anything the speakers were saying). As I listened to the talks and I chatted with some of the speakers afterward, I learned about Amazon Web Services, and I wanted to learn more about AWS and cloud computing.”
Partnering With Companies to Build a Better Tech Industry
In 2017 Women Who Code worked with 621 companies to make tech a better and more inclusive industry. This includes Groupon, DreamWorks, Ebay, Netflix, Mozilla, Hired, Stanford University, Accenture, Slack, Hired, and many more. These are companies that supported our mission by sponsoring programs, Networks and events, as well as organizations that we worked with through the Women Who Code for Companies Job Board, where 1,149 jobs were posted, and which received 56,000 visits over the course of last year.
Spreading the Word Through All of Our Channels
Women Who Code published 170 blogs in 2017. These covered topics including return to work stories, event experiences, news releases, career development and success, professional triumphs, workplace advice, educational items, opinion pieces, technical insights and much more. We also continued to put out the CODE Review Newsletter each week and achieved a readership of over 55,000, and were continuously active and growing our presence on social media, with our Twitter followers reaching 165,000.
As we move into 2018, Women Who Code continues to be dedicated to our mission of inspiring women everywhere to succeed in their technology careers. We invite you to join us in this work by signing up for WomenWhoCode.com, joining a local Network, attending events, mentoring, connecting, and supporting our cause.