The network began in Southern California in 2012 with Anne Balsamo and Alexandra Juhasz as co-founders and co-facilitators. FemTechNet's aim was to be “an activated network of scholars, artists and students who work on, with, and at the borders of technology, science and feminism in a variety of fields including STS, Media and Visual Studies, Art, Women's, Queer and Ethnic Studies.” The network began with a "longing" for a "feminist scholarly and artistic community that deeply understood the histories of feminist work as they also focused on pushing the horizon of contemporary efforts."
In 2014 - 2015 the second Distributed Open Collaborative Course (DOCC) series was offered at the following nodes: Bowling Green State University, Brown University, Colby-Sawyer College, The College of New Jersey, Cornell University, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Rutgers University, The New School, Graduate Center, CUNY, William E. Macaulay Honors College, University of California at San Diego, University of Illinois, MIT, Ohio State University, Penn State University, Pitzer College, California Polytechnic University, California State University Fullerton, Ontario College of Art and Design, Temple University, Texas A and M University, University of California, San Diego, and Yale University.