WECode Draws Women Engineers From Across Nation

For the more than 400 women who attended WECode, the largest student-run conference focused on women in computer science, it may have been easy to forget the stark gender imbalance that exists in the field.

Over the course of the weekend, attendees flocked to Northwest Labs to hear from four keynote speakers and choose from 11 workshops and six panels, all the while meeting from around the world who focus on women in computer science.

WECode co-chair Abigail C. Orlando ’17 said while there is a strong network of women in computer science at Harvard, the same is not true for many colleges across the country. She hoped for WECode to be a platform to bring technical women together.

Pooja Sankar, founder and CEO of Piazza, speaks to attendees of the WECode Conference in Northwest Labs on Saturday. WECode is the largest student-ran Women in Computer Science conference held each year. By Madeleine Taylor-McGrane

“A lot of the girls who come here come from schools where they are literally the only girls; [the conference] makes them see that they’re not alone,” WECode co-chair Billie Wei ’17 said.

Conference attendee Zoe Millard said she is one of eight women out of 120 total computer science concentrators at Stevens Institute of Technology.

“I was looking to build out [Stevens’s Women in Computer Science] more to build a community of women, I wanted to see how to run similar events and operate a similar organization,” Millard said.

The WECode conference, now in its third year, focused on technology in innovation and civic service, co-chairs Wei and Orlando said.

Keynote speaker Cathryn Posey, who works for the United States Digital Service at the White House and is the founder of the Tech By Superwomen movement, spoke about the need for diversity in technological innovation in order to make a difference in people’s lives.

“The government uses technology to make transformational changes to meet people’s needs, but it only works if people in the tech industry raise their hands,” she said. “[T]o make it better, you have to participate.”

As a conference targeting women in computer science, WECode attracts a variety of lucrative sponsors who hope to interact with attendees through panel conversations and skill-training workshops to help attendees prepare for recruitment.

“Sponsors really like our event because they feel like it’s a way to get to know women in technology better,” Wei said. “They’ve been incredibly supportive and approach the conference in ‘how can we open up the conversation for women in computer science.’”

Attendees of the WECode Conference meet with professional mentors over lunch in Northwest Labs on Saturday. WECode attracted several professionals related to the tech industry, including keynote speakers from Piazza and Pinterest. By Madeleine Taylor-McGrane

Vickie Victor, who studies computer science at Mount Holyoke college, said the speakers and workshops affirmed her interests in computer science.

“I know that a lot of times we have technological innovations that are really to have something cool and fancy,” she said. “WECode really showed how people could use their technological knowledge to bring changes to the community and that is really powerful.”

—Staff Writer Jessica Min can be reached at jessica.min@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @jessmin17.