By merging with The Diana Initiative, we will work together to support all marginalized persons who work in security and technology.
Back in 2020, WomenHackerz was born out of an idea to have a women-centric community to share information and education among each other to get into or level up in the Information Security industry. Shortly after, a gender equality issue sparked the idea of making WomenHackerz a more open space for true gender inclusivity. Thus, the name WeAreHackerz was taken and a new Code of Conduct was emplaced.The virtual event WHackzCon happened the same year, wherein two days were spent on Twitch speaking on InfoSec topics by speakers chosen from a CFP, an online beginner-friendly CTF, and the first virtual lockpicking workshop held with LockpickExtreme. The community conferred by Slack at the time.There was a boom of people wanting to get involved in the community, and some were made to be part of the board. We had representatives from around the world and were discussing having global chapters. Realizing that the pandemic would not end for a long time, the initiative did not take flight.We Open Tech was founded instead of WeAreHackerz back in 2021 as an official 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in service of all the underserved marginalized genders that were not previously catered to, such as nonbinary people and trans men. The rebranding happened as an artifact of wanting to sound more official than using “Hackerz” in the name.Due to the growing far right movements that are reducing human rights and belonging, We Open Tech started to deal with a lot, and wanted to give more to its members during this difficult political time. So we called up a friend, Diana Initiative, to discuss how to serve the community better and we came to realize that we need to come together because we are stronger together.
We Open Tech has now merged with The Diana Initiative! Go to https://dianainitiative.org to learn more.
