On June 1st-2nd, NCWIT hosted the 2026 NCWIT Summit in Boulder, Colorado! It was wonderful to convene with attendees in person as well as online. We are deeply grateful for the time, energy, and presence of everyone who attended— either in-person at the University of Colorado Boulder or online!
This year’s event was an intimate gathering of changemakers from across the NCWIT ecosystem — including members, awardees, and partners — uniting to serve as a brain trust to ensure that our technical future belongs to everyone.
While the Summit was a few short days crammed with energy, information, and inspiration, there are countless opportunities to connect with NCWIT throughout the year. Keep an eye out for upcoming webinars, courses, resources, and more!
Find videos from the plenary stage online now in the NCWIT Media Hub: ncwit.org/media
Highlights From Day One
With the beautiful flatirons as the backdrop, the 2026 NCWIT Summit took place at the University Memorial Center on the University of Colorado Boulder campus.
The intimate grassroots gathering of change-leaders officially kicked off with an insightful day of: learning about how technology changes are impacting educational and corporate spaces; workshops offered opportunities for attendees to dive deeper and explore the issues most relevant to their focus within the tech ecosystem; and discovering how to empower one another to critique technologies and reiterate the importance of human thought, ability, and oversight.
First up, “Is Computer Science Dead?” In this panel, Dr. Stefanie Tompkins, Ken Anderson, Kathryn McKinley and Maria Cuevas examined the current structural shifts in computation and their impacts on education and the workplace.
Throughout late morning and afternoon, participants chose from a variety of breakout sessions that provided practical strategies for gaining mutual understanding, collaborating in difficult moments, and turning today’s turbulent climate into traction for sustained cultural change, like:
- Mini Plenary: Questions to Encourage Curiosity, Connection, and Engagement with Katie Hyten
- Workforce Workshop: Building and Supporting Neuro-Inclusive Cultures with Andrea Bowens-Jones and Catherine Ashcraft
- Playing the Long Game: Pursuing Equity-Minded Systems Change in Higher Education during Troublesome Times with Sandra Laursen
- K-12 Workshop: Activating Your Local K12 STEM Ecosystem with Jenny Frank
- Connecting K-12 Learning to Career Pathways
Post breakouts, the Joanne Cohoon Memorial Plenary — in honor of one of NCWIT’s founding research scientists — was led by Casey Fiesler. This timely session focused on artificial intelligence, and more specifically the importance of empowering one another to better understand and critique the uses, limitations, biases, and shortcomings of this technology.
In our continued efforts to incorporate performance to demonstrate the power and importance of human innovation and creativity, we concluded the day with Suzy Q. Smith — local award-winning poet, author and interdisciplinary creative — who shared the powerful, original poem, “The Future Is.”
Then, it was time to convene with fellow changemakers as a light reception was held to toast to a wonderful first day!
Highlights from Day Two
On day two, we continued exploring the collective responsibility to build an ethical future, while also celebrating changemakers within our ecosystem! To begin the day, attendees could select a final breakout session or a mini-plenary — filled with practical strategies and new ideas to build a bright #BPC future.
In “Quantum Computing Educational Pathways,” Joe McBreen and Megan Ivory ignited quantum curiosity to ensure today’s learners —spanning high school foundations, apprenticeships, post-secondary engineering and technician training, and professional reskilling — are ready to architect the next great computational frontier.
In the main plenary room, NCWIT’s very own Catherine Ashcraft and Sharmaine Jackson, led “Everyday Actions, Extraordinary Cultures: Igniting Grassroots Inclusion in Turbulent Times” and demonstrated how small, intentional daily actions — or “microbehaviors” — can spark ripple effects that transform culture from the ground up.
Remember: Microbehaviors are contagious — improving everyday experiences helps to improve organizational policy!
Then, it was time to present the 2026 NCWIT Pioneer in Tech Award. This award recognizes technical trailblazers whose lifetime contributions have significantly impacted the landscape of technological innovation and whose legacies continue to inspire the future of tech to make history in their own right. This year, we honored the life-long achievements of Marian Croak —
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) pioneer, 2026 IEEE Founders Medal recipient, and current Vice President of Human Centered-AI and Foundational Machine Learning at Google.
With over 200 patents, her innovations shape our everyday lives, and she’s a longtime advocate for mentorship, engineering education, and expanding computing and engineering opportunities so young minds can also design technologies around human needs that positively impact the world. She has been inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, the National Academy of Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2022, she made history as one of the first Black women inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
Learn more about her groundbreaking technical contributions, visionary leadership, and enduring impact on tech communications in the NCWIT Media Hub: ncwit.org/blog/2026-ncwit-pioneer-in-tech-marian-croak
In the spirit of recognizing technologists from multiple generations, we then celebrated the 2026 NCWIT Aspirations in Computing Collegiate Award winners. These 12 technologists have made outstanding technical contributions to projects that demonstrate high levels of innovation and potential impact.
Closing out an incredible two days, Emily Pilloton-Lam — of Girls Garage — delivered an inspirational closing plenary on cultivating power in underestimated communities to change the authorship of our built environment.
We’re so grateful for everyone that joined us in Boulder, Colorado for the 2026 NCWIT Summit! Together we can continue building a future where technology reflects the best of what humanity can be.
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Thanks again to our 2026 NCWIT Summit sponsors — PNC Bank and The Computer Science Department at the University of Colorado Boulder — for making this event possible. If you’re interested in sponsoring next year’s event, email: [email protected].
