The 10 Best Women in Tech Events
(Ranked With Love, and Mild Bias)
There is a particular sound a conference lanyard makes when it hits the bottom of a tote bag in October. For a decade, women in tech heard it in convention centers the size of small nations, clutching free water bottles and the faint hope that a recruiter from a company with a fruit logo would remember their name.
Then, this fall, the sound stopped. On October 13, AnitaB.org cancelled the 2026 Grace Hopper Celebration, two weeks before it was due to open in Anaheim, after sponsorships and registrations came up short. Attendance had already slid to about 15,000 in 2025, the lowest since 2016. One founder summed up the mood on LinkedIn: "Women in tech have been officially canceled."
We at the OutGeek Journal would like to file a polite objection. Women in tech have not been canceled. They have simply been rescheduled, rerouted, and, in several cases, moved to a smaller room with better snacks. Below, a field guide to the gatherings still standing, ranked with love, rigor, and only a modest conflict of interest.
The list
- OutGeek Women in Tech, various cities. Free for job seekers, stocked with actual hiring teams, and run by people who have organized more than 550 of these things, so the coffee is hot and the name tags are spelled correctly. We are aware this is the least objective entry in the history of lists. We stand by it. Next stop: April 27, rain or shine.
- WiCyS National Harbor, Maryland. The flagship gathering for women in cybersecurity, held each March outside Washington, with a virtual sequel in April for anyone whose threat model includes air travel.
- Lesbians Who Tech & Allies, New York. The summit that left the Castro for Manhattan and brought its swagger along; this October it ran as a summit-plus-leadership-program, which is a polite way of saying the networking has homework.
- Women In Product, Mountain View. Held this October at the Computer History Museum, where the exhibits and the attendees are both busy asking who gets to decide how AI products are built.
- Women in Data Science (WiDS), everywhere. Born as a one-day conference at Stanford in 2015 and now a global constellation of regional events from Cambridge to Bangalore; this summer it moved out of Stanford's house and became an independent nonprofit, as one does at eleven.
- Women of Silicon Roundabout, London. The UK's largest tech event for women fills the ExCeL with thousands of attendees; bring a sweater, as the organizers themselves gently advise, because the building is colder than a performance review.
- WTSFest, London, Portland, Philadelphia. The Women in Tech SEO Festival, proof that a Slack community can grow up to be a conference circuit; the next London edition lands at the Barbican on March 19, 2027.
- WeAreTech Festival, London. A June day of learning and career coaching from WeAreTheCity, whose sister event, One Tech World, is virtual and free, two words recruiters love almost as much as we do.
- Women in AI Summit at AI Summit New York, Javits Center. A women-led summit parked inside the big AI show in December, which is the correct place to put it: right where the budgets are.
- Grace Hopper Celebration India, Bangalore. The surviving branch of the Hopper family tree, still scheduled for January 20 to 22, 2027. Hopper herself retired from the Navy at 79; we expect similar stamina.
The fine print
Yes, we put ourselves at number one. In our defense, every list is a self-portrait, and ours happens to include free tickets for job seekers and recruiters who actually return emails. The bigger point is this: the gatherings are getting smaller, scrappier, and more local, and that may not be the tragedy it looks like. A room of 150 people where you meet the hiring manager beats a hall of 15,000 where you meet a tote bag.
So go to any of these. Then come to ours. We'll save you a seat, and possibly a drink.