Closure of major women-in-tech organizations threatens diversity and innovation
Some of the largest organizations supporting women in tech have suddenly collapsed. Groups like Girls in Tech and Women Who Code used to connect hundreds of thousands of aspiring technologists. Now those support systems are gone. For many young women, particularly from underrepresented communities, these groups were the only entry point into a high-impact, high-growth sector.
You see the problem, and it’s not just about optics. It’s about performance. McKinsey data shows that companies with more than 30% female representation consistently outperform their peers. That is a strategic advantage. When thousands of future builders lose access to essential education and mentorship, you lose potential. You narrow the market of ideas before a single product is built.
The technology landscape gets stronger when we bring more brains, more perspectives, and more problem-solvers into the room. If that room shrinks because support systems dry up, we all pay the cost in slower innovation, faulty assumptions, and missed user scenarios.
There’s compelling research behind the concern. The National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) found that early exposure to coding significantly increases the likelihood that girls pursue computer science later. Kill the access, and we lose a generation of engineers and founders before they even start.
And then there’s the business case. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a 15% growth in tech jobs from 2021 to 2031. That’s faster than almost every other industry. If fewer women are entering the field, we’re shrinking the supply of qualified workers in an expanding market. That means productivity gaps, missed timelines, and hundreds of untapped innovations.
Madeline Gupta, a Rewriting the Code member creating culturally aligned tech for her Indigenous community, put it together well: without solid support, entire communities miss their shot at tech. And LaToya Anderson, a quantum researcher who often found herself as the only Black woman in the room, made it clear, early community support builds resilience and leadership. The pipeline breaks the moment the path disappears.
If we keep ignoring this, we lose more than people, we lose what they could have built. And as business leaders, technologists, and investors, that’s a trade-off we can’t afford.
Rewriting the code (RTC) exemplifies sustainable support for underrepresented technologists
Not every group folded. While some of the largest women-in-tech organizations went dark, Rewriting the Code (RTC) stayed the course and kept growing. That’s not happening by chance. It’s structure, leadership, and long-term investment. You don’t scale to 35,000 members across 159 countries by accident.
Led by Sue Harnett, RTC has built its model around what actually works: data-driven programming, practical mentorship, and stable funding partnerships. It’s not focused on visibility for visibility’s sake. It’s prioritizing outcomes, skills, job placement, leadership readiness. That’s where business alignment becomes obvious.
For companies looking at talent shortfalls and leadership gaps, this is the opportunity. RTC has become a live wire for emerging talent, women and nonbinary technologists who are vetted, trained, and ready to contribute. And they’re serious about results. While others leaned too hard on legacy branding or single-channel funding, RTC built durability into its design.
There’s something you should understand if you sit on a board, lead a product team, or manage innovation budgets: future-ready organizations will depend on talent pipelines that reflect the world, not just fragments of it. RTC is generating those pipelines in real time, with corporate partners who aren’t waiting for the next PR crisis to write a check.
The organization also understands that mentorship matters. The tech sector doesn’t run purely on skill; it runs on networks, context, and confidence. RTC is scaling that across geographies and cultures. It’s adaptable, and that’s why it’s still here.
Sue Harnett captured it directly: “At a time when support systems are disappearing, we’re doubling down, proving that communities like ours can thrive if given consistent investment and a commitment to genuine inclusion.”
That’s the kind of leadership the industry needs more of. Executives who are serious about future-proofing their people strategy should be asking how their company can build or partner with systems that replicate RTC’s results. The demand for inclusive, scalable, results-oriented models like this isn’t going away, it’s moving faster than ever.
Grassroots tech mentorship movements emerge despite centralized organization failures
When legacy nonprofits disappear, it leaves a vacuum. But what happened after the collapse of Girls in Tech shows something important, the community isn’t waiting for permission to keep moving. Former members built their own connections, turning to Discord and other platforms to keep sharing resources, mentoring newcomers, and organizing projects. That momentum didn’t die. It decentralized.
Localized efforts are stepping in where national groups dropped off. Smaller initiatives are being launched by individuals who experienced the power of mentorship and want to pass it on. This signals something actionable for executives: there’s still strong buy-in from the people most impacted, women and nonbinary technologists who’ve already pushed through barriers. The infrastructure may be fragmented now, but the energy and commitment remain.
From a business standpoint, this reflects a shift. Support and innovation aren’t only coming from formal institutions anymore. They’re emerging where people are most committed and adaptable. These small-scale, often volunteer-led groups are more agile and more focused, because they’re built from necessity, not legacy.
Grassroots movements don’t need to be massive to be meaningful. When people are building things directly within their communities, whether that’s through online networks or localized coding initiatives, they’re doing more than just filling a gap. They’re creating new, distributed models for resilience.
Sue Harnett, founder of Rewriting the Code, reinforces this point: “Tech thrives when people see role models they can identify with.” That visibility doesn’t have to come from polished keynote speakers or high-budget conferences. It often comes from a peer, a mentor, or a fellow builder who gets what it means to be underestimated and still move forward.
For executives, this is a chance to step in with targeted support, sponsorships, microgrants, leadership training, or even platforms that help these local groups scale their influence. These aren’t charity moves. They’re aligned with long-term recruitment strategies and innovation sourcing.
If companies are serious about nurturing a sustainable talent pipeline, they can’t just focus on brand-name partnerships. They should engage where people are already doing the work, at the grassroots, where momentum continues regardless of market headlines.
Inclusive corporate action is essential to preserving and growing a diverse tech workforce
If you’re leading a company and still thinking diversity is someone else’s responsibility, you’re already behind. As traditional women-in-tech nonprofits wind down, the pressure is shifting. Companies can no longer rely on external programs to fuel inclusive hiring pipelines. They have to build or co-create the solutions themselves. Execution here matters, and it starts with being direct about impact.
Support for diversity needs to be concrete: early exposure programs, mentoring networks, apprenticeships, internal sponsorship, localized community partnerships. Those are mechanisms tied to talent performance, retention, and leadership growth. You want people to stay and grow? Then you invest early and often.
Microsoft’s LEAP program introduces K–12 students to tech careers. Google gives scholarships and internships tailored to underrepresented students in STEM. IBM and Cisco have internal Women in Tech networks that influence policy and hiring.
There’s also clear data behind this. LinkedIn’s Workplace Learning Report shows employees who receive high-quality mentorship are more likely to get promoted and stay at their companies longer. That sticks in environments where high attrition costs millions. Getting mentorship right is a business decision, not just a feel-good initiative.
If your leadership pipeline is homogenous, you’re slowing down innovation and risking disconnection from how global users actually live, work, and think. That’s more than a branding problem, it’s a product design risk and a growth inhibitor.
Angela Cao, a data scientist and member of Rewriting the Code, points out how a supportive and inclusive community changes the game. Diagnosed with autism at age two, she understands how different timelines and communication styles can affect how people are perceived and advanced in their careers. “Success takes many forms,” she says. Inclusive environments give those forms room to develop.
So here’s the call to action for executives: build structures within your company that invest in this long-term. Fund scholarships. Run mentorship circles with measurable outcomes. Make apprenticeship programs real, not performative. Partner with organizations like RTC, not out of obligation, but because your business will be stronger with broader ideas at the table.
Organizations are engineering a system that doesn’t lose high-potential people halfway through the process. Inclusive action is a leadership function. Treat it like one.
Lack of diversity in tech results in economic losses and stunted innovation
There’s a measurable cost to keeping tech homogeneous. You’re limiting what the industry can do. Teams without diversity miss things. They build products that don’t scale well across markets. They introduce bias in AI systems. They overlook user needs outside their own experience.
When product development is driven by narrow teams, outcomes suffer. Biases in software, gaps in performance data, and flawed assumptions about user behavior are all byproducts of underrepresentation. They hit your customers, they hit your reputation, and they hit your bottom line.
The numbers are clear. An Intel–Dalberg study estimates the U.S. tech industry loses up to $16 billion every year due to lack of diversity. It includes missed market segments, underperformance in global expansion, slower product cycles, and avoidable rework. If your company is underbuilding because your teams lack perspective, you’re already behind.
At the same time, demand for tech talent is moving fast. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a 15% increase in tech jobs from 2021 to 2031, well above average. But with fewer underrepresented talent sources entering that pipeline, you get a workforce designed to fall short of demand.
The impact compounds. Without representation informing the tools we build, we normalize friction for entire user bases. From healthcare tech that misreads biological markers to finance tools that don’t understand multi-generational households, the consequences of narrow design have mainstream outcomes.
Diversity is infrastructure for better decisions. More backgrounds on a team increase the quality of debate, the range of solutions, and the accuracy of technical assumptions. That accelerates progress.
So if you’re optimizing for innovation, don’t ignore who’s in the room. If you want to compete in future markets, stop filtering out the very people who can help you build them. The cost of exclusion is baked into every missed opportunity.
Future innovation depends on inclusive leadership and equitable talent development
If you’re serious about long-term relevance in tech, you need more than short-term hiring fixes. You need leadership development that doesn’t leave marginalized talent behind. The future of innovation won’t be shaped by one background or perspective. It will be driven by teams that reflect the complexity of the world they’re building for.
That means investing in equity at every level of the talent pipeline, reaching early, supporting through mid-career roadblocks, and removing invisible ceilings at the leadership tier. It’s not enough to give someone access to an internship or a starter role. What matters is whether they’re given the platform, feedback, and opportunity to lead.
Companies that want to stay competitive need to build a bridge between academic prep and real-world execution. University programs are often behind on emerging fields like AI ethics, quantum computing, and spatial technology. That’s a disconnect. If you’re leading a tech organization and relying solely on traditional recruitment channels, you’re hiring for past challenges, not the ones that will define the next decade.
This is why community-driven platforms like Rewriting the Code (RTC) are essential. RTC is preparing talent for what’s next, not just what’s standard. From ethics in machine learning to immersive environments that can scale education across languages and borders, they’re building adaptable technical and leadership capacity.
Sue Harnett, founder of RTC, makes the case: “Women bring essential perspectives to how products, services, and discoveries evolve. We need broad representation, varied life experiences and viewpoints, so technology serves everyone.” Representation informs function. Differentiated input drives more complete output.
Angélica Lozano-Romines, an Indigenous educator and member of Latinas de RTC, puts it into practice. She’s blending game development with cultural education to help Indigenous youth see themselves in science and tech. That accelerates inclusion from the ground up. It also expands the type of innovations possible, because innovation scales best when it’s grounded in real-world relevance.
For executives, this is the part that requires focus: Are your teams, systems, and tools configured to elevate diverse leadership, not just hire diverse entry-level staff? Are you creating channels for continued development in high-growth fields? If not, the skills gap isn’t going to shrink, it’s going to deepen, and so will your company’s strategic exposure.
The companies that solve this will win because they’ll move faster, build smarter, and serve broader markets with fewer errors. That’s where the next cycle of tech growth is heading. You should be there first.
Key executive takeaways
- Closure of legacy support systems threatens long-term innovation: The shutdown of major women-in-tech organizations like Girls in Tech has dismantled early access points for diverse talent, jeopardizing the quality and creativity of future tech workforces. Leaders should invest in solutions that rebuild early exposure and mentorship pipelines.
- RTC offers a working model for sustainable inclusion: Rewriting the Code’s global, data-driven infrastructure has kept it growing while others folded. Executives should study and partner with proven models like RTC to build resilient and scalable talent ecosystems.
- Community-led networks are filling the gap left by collapsed national groups: Grassroots initiatives, including peer-led mentorship and local tech communities, are sustaining momentum where traditional support systems disappeared. Leaders should identify and support these efforts to access a highly engaged talent base.
- Corporate DEI action must move from performative to structural: Effective strategies include mentorship, scholarships, apprenticeships, and internal inclusion networks—all linked to measurable retention and promotion outcomes. Leaders must embed these systems into core talent development, not treat them as side programs.
- Diversity drives innovation and avoids costly blind spots: Homogeneous teams miss market signals, introduce bias, and delay growth. Companies blocking diverse perspectives risk losing up to $16B annually, according to Intel–Dalberg research.
- Future-ready leadership depends on inclusive development in emerging tech: As technologies like AI and quantum computing mature, equitable access to training and leadership must happen now. Executives should align education pipelines with next-gen tech needs and promote underrepresented talent into decision-making roles.
