Harvard Undergraduate Women in Computer Science (WiCS) was established in 2012 by two Harvard students, Anne Madoff and Amy Yin and advised by Professor Radhika Nagpal. They created the community to address the growing number of female CS concentrators yet declining representation in the department. They established the organization to build a network of women in computer science across schools and industries, create awareness of and build opportunities for women in the technical fields and promote the importance of a technical education for girls.
WiCS established an undergraduate conference for female undergraduate computer scientists in the East Coast, the Women Engineers Code conference, led by Harvard College sophomore JN Fang. The conference was intended to be a mini Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing and attracted over 300 students from over 40 colleges in its inaugural year. Women in CS appeared in The New York Times's Dealbook for an article about Goldman Sachs's sending nail files to WECode. The article was controversial and Women in CS responded in an op-ed in The Harvard Crimson