Donna Auguste
Personal Information
Born: 1958
Country of Birth: USA
Nationality: USA
Ethnicity: Black
Education
BS in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley; PhD in Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
Professional Life
Field of Study: Computer Science; Artificial Intelligence
Institution/Corporation: Freshwater Software, Inc; Auguste Research Group; Apple Computers
Degrees & Memberships: none
Awards & Achievements
Awards: 2000, recognized by Fortune magazine as 1 of 25 Women Who Are Making it Big in Small Business; 2001, Golden Touch Award for Outstanding Women in Technology; 2000, Denver Business Journal, Outstanding Women in Business Award; 2000, Colorado Women in Technology, Lifetime Contribution Award
Achievements: Founder & CEO of Freshwater Software, Inc; Founder Auguste Research Group; Founder Leave a Little Room Foundation; developer of Data Tip; helped develop PDA at Apple
At Apple developed Newton personal digital assistant (PDA)
She & her 4 sisters were raised by her single mother
As a child she liked to take things (doorbells & appliances) apart to see how they worked
1st female African-American to attend the PhD program at Carnegie-Mellon University
After working at IntelliCorp on AI, she took 2 months off to bicycle through the countryside of Japan
1996, co-founded Freshwater Software Inc & took it from a small startup to a nationally recognized multimillion dollar software provider; 2001 sold the company to Mercury Interactive Corporation of California for $147 million
Retired in 2001 & founded Leave a Little Room Foundation, LLC; it provides housing, electricity & vaccinations to poor & underprivileged communities around the world
Holds 14 patents