A landmark initiative by Secure Purple to combat online violence and harassment. The hackathon brings together women and allies from diverse backgrounds to collaborate, innovate and build technical solutions for some of the most pressing cybersecurity challenges facing women online.
The Women Cyber Safety Hackathon is a flagship community initiative by Secure Purple dedicated to tackling the growing threat of online violence against women. Across Pakistan and beyond, women face a disproportionate share of cyber harassment, blackmail, impersonation, image-based abuse, defamation and targeted trolling: harms that the security industry has been historically slow to engineer against.
This hackathon channels the talent of women and their allies (developers, researchers, designers, policy students) directly into the problem space. It is not a conference. It is a build: a multi-city, multi-week programme where cohorts move from awareness into ideation into functioning prototypes, judged by industry experts and funded to go to market.
Every edition is structured so that participants leave with three things they didn't have when they walked in: a working team, a defensible solution concept, and direct relationships with the people who can help them ship it.
Structured sessions covering blackmail, harassment, trolling, hacking, defamation, oversharing and impersonation, grounded in real-world case studies and interactive exercises so participants build both defensive awareness and a problem-framing vocabulary.
Selected participants form small teams to design and prototype solutions. Each team delivers a five-minute pitch evaluated on impact, feasibility and originality by a panel of security leaders and industry experts.
Winning teams receive prize funding to support product development and go-to-market. Secure Purple continues to mentor the strongest concepts into shippable tools that reach the women they were built for.
"This isn't another awareness campaign. It's a builder's room: women walked in with problems they'd lived through, and walked out with teams, code and funding to fix them."
Secure Purple Programme LeadFrom nationwide applications down to the three teams whose solutions we funded: every stage is filtered by an expert jury before the next begins.
Applicant proposals submitted from across the country.
Participants invited into the training & sprint cohort.
Teams formed for the ideation sprint and final pitches.
Winning teams funded to build and ship their solutions.
Leaders from academia, government cybersecurity, industry SOCs and fintech judge submissions and mentor the teams.
Lecturer, Air University. Academic lead for cybersecurity curriculum design and women-in-STEM programmes.
Security Expert, National Information Technology Board. National-level cybersecurity strategy and policy.
SOC Analyst, Jazz. Front-line defensive operations, detection engineering and incident response.
Director of Ecosystem, Fasset. Fintech security, product risk and scaling secure digital products.
A look at the workshops, the pitches and the community that formed around the programme.
On closing night, three teams stepped up to take home PKR 120,000 in funding, for ideas the jury believed could actually ship. Here's how the ceremony played out.
Every participant left with a working prototype, a network of mentors, and a much clearer picture of what safer platforms could look like. Below, the three teams whose work the jury decided to back on the night.
The full photographer's roll from the programme, from opening registration through the final prize-giving. Scroll sideways to walk through the day, one frame at a time.
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For sponsors, applicants and partners: the questions we hear most often.
The programme is open to women at any stage (students, early-career developers, researchers, designers, policy analysts) and their allies. No prior cybersecurity experience is required; the training component is designed to level the playing field before teams form.
Every applicant submits a short proposal describing a cyber-safety problem they care about. Submissions are screened by our expert jury on impact, feasibility and originality. Of 230+ applications in the 2024 cohort, 60 participants were accepted.
No. The hackathon is fully funded by sponsors and partners. Accepted participants receive training, mentorship and access to the full programme at no cost.
The top three teams receive prize funding to support product development. Beyond that, Secure Purple continues to mentor the strongest concepts into shippable tools, connecting teams with engineers, legal support and distribution partners.
Submissions cluster around themes such as image-based abuse takedown workflows, impersonation detection, safer DM architectures, harassment reporting tooling and consent-aware social-media defaults.
Sponsors fund cohorts, contribute mentors from their security teams and receive first look at breakout solutions. Email ask@securepurple.com to request a partnership deck.
Applicant data is stored with industry-standard encryption, access-controlled systems and aligned with international data protection regulations. We do not share personally identifiable information outside of the jury review process.
Yes. Winning teams have ongoing mentorship. All participants join the Secure Purple community network for continued learning, job referrals and collaboration on future editions.
Every engagement we've run with Secure Purple has had a community outcome layered on top of the commercial one. They don't just deliver; they invest.
Walking into a women-first cybersecurity space meant the questions I'd been holding back actually got asked, and answered. I left with a CV, a mentor, and three teammates.