*“Beneath this mask,*
*There is an idea.*
*And ideas are bulletproof.”*

The Beginning

On a cold winter night in December 2018, two witches came together to conspire.

They were both cybersecurity professionals. Both had survived more than five years of dreadful deadlines, sleepless exam nights, and the general chaos that comes with studying a technical field. Then they landed their first jobs and found themselves in a familiar position: they were the only women on their teams.

"We should change that."
"How?"
"We just do it."

And so, Women In Cybersecurity Community Amsterdam (yes, that’s the old name!) was born.

Every good story needs witches. Ours are simply women armed with curiosity, technical expertise, and an unhealthy number of conference badges. And the witches in question were Val and Andrea.

Val worked for an awesome team of hackers at KPN, who generously offered a space for their very first meetup. Between them, they had spent enough time attending cybersecurity conferences and community events to think they knew what they were doing.

After all, they expected fewer than ten people to show up…

More than twenty did.

Twenty women who were all, or almost all, the only women on their teams. Twenty women looking for people who understood their experiences. Twenty women who came together for an evening and unknowingly became part of the beginning of something much bigger.

What started as a small meetup would eventually grow into a two-day conference with more than 400 attendees, over 30 all-women speakers, loyal sponsors, and an incredible team of volunteers.

Building A Community

Chantal jumped aboard almost as soon as the ship left the harbour, and together they set their sights on the stars.

Within its first year, WICCA (Women In Cybersecurity Association now!) had grown into an official not-for-profit community built around monthly educational meetups. The team partnered with companies, universities, and even the Dutch governmeant, all with the same goal: sharing knowledge while having fun.

The community reached its first 100 members within a matter of months. The first 1,000 followed a few years later. Back then, growth relied on a combination of enthusiastic Twitter spam, AI-less LinkedIn posts, a pretty website, and a healthy dose of word of mouth.

A year after its creation, they dared to dream bigger.

They wouldn't organise just another meetup.
They would organise a conference.
A real one.

That meant finding a venue, convincing sponsors, creating artwork, recruiting speakers, printing flyers, posters, stickers, and countless other things ending in -ers. But none of that scared them. If anything, it made the challenge more exciting.

Then the pandemic hit.
And suddenly, the entire world was told to stay indoors.

Rising From the Ashes

The pandemic wouldn't stop them.

They turned to webcams and keyboards. To Zoom calls and increasingly creative virtual backgrounds. WICCA became a digital safe space, connecting women across the world who, like the founders years earlier, often found themselves as the only woman on their team.

What started as a necessity quickly became an opportunity. Women who would never have been able to attend a meetup in the Netherlands could suddenly join from anywhere.

When in-person events finally returned, WICCA adopted a hybrid format. The community had grown beyond the Netherlands, and there was no reason to leave those new connections behind.

Because that's what WICCA has always been about.

Creating a community where everyone is welcome. A place where, for a few hours, someone who feels alone can realise they aren't.

The pandemic eventually came to an end, but the dream from three years earlier never went away.

It was time to dream again.

The Day We Made WICCON

It was up to Chantal, Val, and a small set of new recruits to make it happen.

Over the previous years, they had built a community of more than 1,000 members. More than 1,000 women in cybersecurity. More than 1,000 stories, careers, and experiences. Surely among them were enough people with something worth sharing on a stage.

All they needed now was a venue.
And money.

The date was chosen: October 31st, 2023.
Halloween, obviously. What other date could there possibly be?

LinkedIn became the town square. The call went out. Speakers, sponsors, volunteers, supporters. Anyone willing to help turn a crazy idea into a real conference.

Longtime friend KPN became the first sponsor. A website went live. A CFP was launched. An actual mailbox was created so people could stop messaging the organisers through every platform imaginable. Spreadsheets were automated. Invoices were generated. And then began the relentless grind of finding sponsors and speakers.

Choosing the venue turned out to be surprisingly easy. It had to be the Lichtfabriek in Haarlem.
An old factory with exactly the right amount of haunted-house energy for a cybersecurity conference taking place on Halloween.

Then the CFP closed.
More than 80 submissions had come in.
EIGHTY.
Far more than anyone had anticipated.

Three months before the event, enough sponsorship money had been secured to make the conference financially viable. By September, a volunteer team was assembled and ready for the big day.

The pieces were finally in place.
And then it happened.

More than 300 people showed up.

Across two tracks, 14 women took the stage to share their cybersecurity research, experiences, and expertise. Around 70% of the audience was made up of women, something still rare enough in cybersecurity to make many attendees stop and look around the room in disbelief.

For once, being surrounded by women in cybersecurity was normal.

The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Attendees wanted more. Speakers wanted to come back. Sponsors wanted to stay involved.

So the organisers reached the only reasonable conclusion.
They would do it again.

The Next Adventure

October 2024 came, and WICCON happened again.
This time, bigger.

Two days. Twice the sponsors. Twice the speakers. Around 350 people gathered to watch 31 women take the stage and share their knowledge with the community.

Then came WICCON2025.

More than 400 people attended.

By then, WICCON was no longer just a dream. It was no longer a wild idea scribbled on the back of a metaphorical napkin. It had become a process, a community, and a team of witches who had somehow turned an impossible idea into a recurring reality.

What comes next?
We don't know.

What we do know is that we are organising WICCON2026 with the same ambition and the same fire we had back in 2018, when it was just two witches on a cold winter night deciding they wanted to change something.

And you can help make it happen.
Whether you speak, sponsor, volunteer, or simply show up as yourself, you become part of the story.

"Empower women. Secure tomorrow."
That's our motto.

We know we probably won't change the entire world.
But maybe we can change a tiny piece of it.

After all, that's how WICCON started.
With two witches.

Join the coven.