Hidden Figures: Donna Auguste #BlackHERstoryMonth 24/28 (Patreon)

Hidden Figures: Donna Auguste #BlackHERstoryMonth 24/28

Donna Auguste is an African-American businesswoman, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. She was the founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Freshwater Software from 1996 to 2001. Prior to Freshwater Software, she was a senior engineering manager at Apple, who helped to coordinate the development of the personal digital assistant, or PDA. The first member of her family to graduate from college, she was also the first black woman to enter the Ph.D. program in computer science at Carnegie Mellon University. After graduating from high school, she enrolled in the electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) program at the University of California, Berkeley. She did graduate study in computer science at Carnegie-Mellon University, where she earned her MS degree in 1983. Auguste was hired by IntelliCorp as a software engineer in 1986 to work on technology products that incorporated artificial intelligence. Auguste was hired by Apple Computer in 1990 to serve as lead software engineering manager for the Newton PDA development project. While at Apple, Auguste was well-liked and won praises for her managerial skills as well as technical contributions, and she holds various patents for her work on the PDA. In 1996, Auguste relocated to Boulder, Colorado and joined U.S. West Advanced Technologies as senior director of multimedia systems engineering and development. While working on interactive television applications for the company's fiber-optic broadband network, Auguste foresaw the potential of the internet and later launched her own company: Freshwater Software Inc., a provider of software solutions for maintaining and monitoring business-critical web applications. Freshwater Software grew rapidly from a tiny start-up into a nationally recognized multimillion-dollar software provider which boasted Fortune 500 clients such as Alta Vista, IBM, Microsoft, Go.com, and Merrill Lynch. In 2001, she sold Freshwater Software to Mercury Interactive Corp. for $147 million. In the same year, she was recognized as one of the "25 Women Who Are Making It Big in Small Business" by Fortune Magazine. She also won the 2001 Golden Torch Award for Outstanding Woman in Technology. Upon retiring after the sale of Freshwater Software, Auguste founded the Leave a Little Room Foundation, LLC, a philanthropic organization that helps provide housing, electricity, and vaccinations to poor and underprivileged communities around the world. In 2008, Auguste was diagnosed with Lupus, and she also works to raise awareness around the disease. #DonnaAuguste #HiddenFigures ****************** Merchandise! MAKE SURE U GETTA SHIRT!! https://www.teepublic.com/user/sssseren Follow me on social media! Twitter: @seren_sensei Instagram: @sensei_aishitemasu Personal Tumblr: http://sensei-aishitemasu.tumblr.com Tumblr for my work: https://sssseren.tumblr.com Snapchat: sssseren GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/tc5wh7q Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/seren_sensei ****************** Did you know I wrote a book? ☺️ 'So, About That... A Year of Contemporary Essays on Race and Pop Culture' Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/About-That-Contemporary-Essays-Culture-ebook/dp/B013V0CHK6 Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B013V0CHK6 Digital download (e-book): https://gumroad.com/l/IkUa ****************** Links: 'Donna Auguste:' https://www.ncwit.org/profile/donna-auguste https://www.ncwit.org/audio/interview-donna-auguste 'Profile; Reprogramming the Hacker Elite:' http://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/02/business/profile-reprogramming-the-hacker-elite.html?pagewanted=all 'Donna Auguste, Living with Lupus:' http://lupuscolorado.org/living-with-lupus/donna-auguste-living-with-lupus/ 'Women Who Inspire Us - Software:' http://www.girlgeeks.org/innergeek/inspiringwomen/auguste.shtml 'Freshwater Software to be sold:' https://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2001/05/21/daily9.html '25 Women Who Are Making It Big In Small Business Smart, gutsy, innovative. Without them the new economy wouldn't look quite so new:' http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fsb/fsb_archive/2001/03/01/298108/index.htm