Donna Auguste
CEO, Freshwater Technologies

President and CEO Donna Auguste founded Freshwater Software Inc in 1996 to bring to market tools that would help companies maintain control over evolving Internet/intranet environments. Prior to founding Freshwater Software Inc, Auguste was senior director for US West Advanced Technologies where she built and led an engineering team developing the architecture for interactive television applications for US West's Fiber Optic Broadband network. Before joining US West she was a key engineering manager for the landmark Newton Personal Digital Assistant product family at Apple Computer, a product achievement noted for its use of "intelligent" user interfaces and engineering innovations that made possible its small form factor. Prior to Apple, Auguste spent six years at IntelliCorp as part of the engineering team that introduced some of the world's first commercial Artificial Intelligence knowledge engineering technology products.

Auguste holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of California, Berkeley; she has completed graduate studies in computer science at Carnegie-Mellon University. She has been awarded three patents by the US Patent and Trademark Office for her innovative engineering work on the Apple Newton Personal Digital Assistant.

Auguste is editor of a bimonthly business newsletter, WomenCompute.com, and is active in her community as a musician and a volunteer for children's organizations. and took a job at Apple Computer, where she led the team that created the Newton hand-held computer.

Auguste left Apple to move to US WEST, a large telecommunications company. Today, she is the CEO of Freshwater Technologies. Outside of work, Auguste has a great deal of contact with her mother and sisters, and takes pride in her involvement with black community activities. She sings and plays with her church choir and composes gospel music.

Photo courtesy of Blackside, Inc.
Biography by Lauren Foley