Women Who Do Data (W2D2)

What Women Who Do Data (W2D2) does

Women Who Do Data (W2D2) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, member-led community platform founded in 2024 and headquartered in San Francisco. It serves underrepresented data, AI, and ML professionals through a free, application-based membership model with no dues or paywalls. As of its second operating year, W2D2 sustains a private Discord-based community of 500+ members across 30+ countries, supported by a core staff of six. Programs emphasize experiential learning over passive content — hands-on industry projects, applied research, expert workshops, peer mentorship, virtual events, and periodic hackathons. Its stated mission is to empower women and underrepresented groups in AI and data leadership through community, accessible education, and career-advancing opportunities.

Core products include the W2D2 Membership Community (Discord-based collaboration channel with project and mentorship subchannels), the PRISM AI Safety Research Fellowship (a 16-week peer-reviewed research program using a democratic blind peer-voting methodology, with reported 50% acceptance at top-tier AI safety conferences, launching its first cohort in 2026), industry projects, a research paper study group, expert-led workshops, peer mentorship, a video library, and event-driven programs including the Women in AI RAG Hackathon at Stanford and the annual IWD Career Summit. The underlying technology stack relies primarily on third-party community and platform tooling — Discord for member interaction, Zoom for virtual events, Airtable for membership and volunteer applications, Squarespace for the public website, and Mailchimp-style email for newsletters — supplemented by partner-provided infrastructure including Milvus (vector database) and OmniStack inference credits for hackathons. W2D2 maintains GDPR and CCPA-aligned privacy practices.

The business model is nonprofit: W2D2 generates no traditional product revenue and is funded through tax-deductible individual donations and corporate sponsorships covering API/compute credits, project leadership funding, and visibility sponsorships. The go-to-market motion is community-led — growth is driven through Discord activity, virtual events, workshops, hackathons, fellowship applications, and content (blog, video library, newsletter) rather than any sales-led pipeline. W2D2 identifies two stakeholder segments: (1) individual members seeking career advancement, mentorship, portfolio-building projects, and AI safety research opportunities and (2) corporate and organizational partners (Google Women Techmakers, Zilliz, GenAI Collective, AI Safety UAE, Technovation, Blue Dot, etc.) seeking access to diverse AI talent and visibility into emerging research. All member-facing programs are 100% free with no paid tiers.

Name

Women Who Do Data (W2D2)

Legal name

Women Who Do Data

Website

https://w2d2.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2024

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

W2D2 is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit member-led community of 500+ underrepresented data and AI professionals across 30+ countries, offering free projects, mentorship, hackathons, and the PRISM AI Safety Research Fellowship.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Professional Community & Career Development (Data & AI)

NAICS

Professional Organizations (81392), Educational Support Services (61171)

SIC

Services-Membership Organizations (8600)

akta.pro primary industry

Peer-to-Peer & Student Mentor Tutoring Platforms (EDANAGAK)

Keywords

• Professional tech community
• Data and AI education
• AI safety research
• Career development programs
• Nonprofit member network

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Others

Revenue model

1. Donations and Contributions: Tax-deductible contributions from individuals and organizations that keep W2D2 100% free. Donations fund tools and programming that help members build the future of AI.
2. Corporate Partnerships: Partnerships with organizations providing technical infrastructure (API credits, compute power), project leadership funding, and industry visibility sponsorship for publishing and hosting costs.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels7 records

Core offering

W2D2 is a free, member-led community platform for underrepresented data and AI professionals. The core offering is the membership community built around a private Discord server providing access to hands-on industry projects, the 16-week PRISM AI Safety Research Fellowship, expert-led workshops, peer mentorship, research paper study groups, event recordings, and a video library. All programs are 100% free with no membership dues or paywalls.

Product overview

Women Who Do Data (W2D2) is a free, member-led community platform offering a unified ecosystem for underrepresented data and AI professionals. The core offering is the membership community built around a private Discord server, which provides access to industry projects, the PRISM AI Safety Research Fellowship (a 16-week peer-reviewed research program), expert-led workshops, peer mentorship, event recordings, research paper study groups, and a video library/blog. The portfolio centers on experiential learning through doing—members participate in hands-on projects and research that build portfolios and advance careers. Key programs include the PRISM Fellowship for AI safety research and periodic hackathons like the Women in AI RAG Hackathon. All offerings are free to members with no membership dues or paywalls.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• PRISM AI Safety Research Fellowship A 16-week fellowship enabling the next generation of AI safety researchers to produce peer-reviewed research in interpretability, AI governance, evaluation, and alignment through a democratic blind peer voting methodology. Free for selected fellows.
• W2D2 Membership Community Free global network of 500+ members providing access to a private Discord community, industry projects, research initiatives, peer mentorship, and expert-led workshops for underrepresented data and AI professionals.
• Industry Projects Hands-on collaborative projects bringing data and AI solutions to life, enabling members to find collaborators and advance passion projects with portfolio-grade outcomes.
• Video Library Recorded content including conference talks, career webinars, research paper study groups, and tech career advice sessions from community members and experts.
• W2D2 Blog Community blog featuring articles on career strategies, AI trends, tech skills, women in tech, and organizational news including research fellowship announcements.
• Research Paper Study Group Regular community session where members study and discuss cutting-edge AI/ML research papers, fostering collaborative learning and knowledge sharing.
• Expert-Led Workshops Live educational sessions led by industry experts covering technical skills, career development, and emerging topics in data and AI.
• Peer Mentorship Program One-on-one mentorship matching connecting members with peer mentors and senior leaders for career guidance and professional development support.
• Women in AI RAG Hackathon In-person hackathon event where participants build retrieval-augmented generation systems using Milvus vector database and small foundation models, with sponsors providing inference credits and technical infrastructure.
• IWD Career Summit Annual International Women's Day career summit featuring keynotes, skills mapping forums, mentor sessions, and career action planning workshops.

Quantifiable outcome

• 50% of PRISM Fellowship papers accepted to top-tier conferences

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration2 records

AI capability5 records

Feature1 record

Partnerships

Nine partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• Google Women TechmakerscoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 11 April 2025Collaboration on IWD Celebration 2025: Redefine Possible. Google Women Techmakers provides platform for empowering women in tech through events and community building.
• Blue DotminorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 28 February 2025Partner for Intro to AI Safety event. Blue Dot Education track at Women in AI Safety Hackathon introduces participants to AI safety concepts.
• ZillizcoreTechnology or Integration · 25 January 2025Co-host of Women in AI RAG Hackathon. Zilliz is creator and maintainer of Milvus, the open source vector database used in the hackathon. Provided technical platform and vector database expertise.
• GenAI CollectivecoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 25 January 2025Co-host of Women in AI RAG Hackathon. A non-profit grassroots community of 25,000+ founders, researchers, operators, and investors representing the global forum for AI and technological progress.
• OmniStackcoreTechnology or Integration · 25 January 2025Sponsor of Women in AI RAG Hackathon. Provided $500 in inference credits to each team to run 100+ pre-deployed models including LLAMA or deploy fine-tuned models.
• AI Safety UAEcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerOrganizational partner shown on W2D2 website. AI Safety UAE focuses on AI safety initiatives and shares alignment with W2D2's PRISM Fellowship program for AI safety research.
• Women Techmakers (WTM)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerGoogle-affiliated Women Techmakers program shown as organizational partner. Collaboration on IWD Celebration 2025: Redefine Possible virtual panel event.
• TechnovationminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerOrganizational partner supporting W2D2's mission to advance women in technology. Part of ecosystem of organizations supporting underrepresented talent.
• GDG BurnabyminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerGoogle Developer Groups Burnaby chapter shown as organizational partner supporting diverse AI/data community building.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Broad incumbents

• Women Techmakers: Google-affiliated global program supporting women in tech with events, resources, and community. W2D2 has already partnered with Women Techmakers on IWD 2025 and shares the mission of advancing women in technology, but WTM has materially greater scale and Google backing.

Emerging players

• Outreachy: Nonprofit providing paid remote internships in open source and tech to people from underrepresented groups. Comparable mission of creating career pathways for underrepresented tech talent, though focused on paid internships rather than W2D2's free community-and-fellowship model.
• AI Safety Camp: Program offering cohorts and mentorship for early-career researchers working on AI safety. Directly comparable to W2D2's PRISM Fellowship in AI safety research training, though with a more research-pipeline and less community-orchestration orientation.
• Data Science for Social Good: University-based fellowship programs (Chicago, NYU, others) training aspiring data scientists to work on social-impact projects. Comparable project-based, fellowship-style approach to W2D2's industry projects and PRISM Fellowship, though with an academic-institutional host.

Direct peers

• Black in AI: Community organization increasing representation of Black researchers in AI through workshops at top ML conferences (NeurIPS, ICML). Comparable demographic focus on underrepresented AI talent with similar academic-research orientation as W2D2's PRISM Fellowship.
• AI4ALL: Nonprofit focused on diversifying AI through education, mentorship, and pathways programs for underrepresented talent. Highly comparable mission and target audience to W2D2, with a longer operating history and established university partnerships.
• GenAI Collective: Grassroots nonprofit community of 25,000+ AI founders, researchers, and investors that co-hosts hackathons with W2D2. Highly comparable community-led, free-membership model with overlapping AI research and applied-project programming.
• Women in Machine Learning (WiML): Long-running community organizing workshops, mentoring events, and travel grants for women in machine learning research. Directly comparable mission to W2D2's research-and-fellowship focus and operates in the same AI/ML talent-development category.
• LatinX in AI: Nonprofit community advancing Latinx representation in AI through research workshops, mentorship, and networking. Shares W2D2's underrepresented-in-AI focus and offers a similar mix of research engagement, events, and member support programs.
• Technovation: Nonprofit running programs that engage girls and women in technology and entrepreneurship. Already listed as a W2D2 partner, with overlapping mission and audience in advancing women in technology through education and project-based learning.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/womenwhododata

Compliance2 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles5 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Women Who Do Data (W2D2)