GHC is “the world’s largest gathering advancing women in tech.” It’s one of those events where I’ve never heard anything but resounding praise from participants. The stated reason for its 2026 cancellation was a budget shortfall, likely related to the global cutback on DEIDEI = Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs:

It is a function of not having the funds required to move forward with the Celebration, unlike in years past.

AnitaB.org, the umbrella organisation for GHC and a bunch of other DEI initiatives, did not give any specifics in terms of the size of the budget gap; in fact, they went out of their way to thank those sponsors that stayed onboard:

To our attendees, sponsors, speakers, volunteers, partners, and everyone who has invested in making Grace Hopper Celebration possible: we are profoundly grateful, and profoundly sorry.

Elementary, Mr. Watson

What we do know, however, is which companies that were a partner in one way or another in 2025 were not on the list of 2026 partners:

If you count your employer among one of those companies: Maybe it’s worth pushing for more budget in 2027, or at least inquiring why they had to drop this funding.

In all fairness, I have to say that this does not have to be solely due to sponsors pulling out. AnitaB.org themselves writes that “both individual registrations and sponsorship commitments came in significantly below prior years,” and not having “the funds required to pay the costs of producing the Celebration” could also just well be good ol’ mismanagement.

Either way, a company dropping its partnership —especially when it otherwise recorded significant financial success— leaves a bad aftertaste.

Places of study

US universities at least have a somewhat palatable reason for why they’re cutting DEI spending: In early 2025 — potentially before any fallout for committed GHC 2025 financing, but well in time for 2026 — the US administration broadly cut federal funding for DEI programs amid a spree of disputed investigations.

Not all bad

Oh the other hand, some companies have also newly signed on as sponsors for 2026:

Appendix

The data is obtained from a list of 2025 ‘sponsors and patrons’archived copy and the list of 2026 partnersarchived copy , both retrieved on Oct 14th, 2026.

Of course, there could be data errors on both the (arguably, right now, fairly busy) GHC organisers as well as when I compiled these lists. I’d be more than happy to hear if any of those companies did actually keep their partnership agreements, or do want to sponsor in 2027.