Breakfast Speakers

Each month at the WBE Breakfast we have an inspirational speaker. Thank you to all of our speakers!  Our speaker for February 2008 was:

Trish Millines Dziko

Rethinking Diversity and Its Impact on Our Lives

Trish spent 15 years working in the high tech industry as a software tester, a software developer, a manager, a consultant, and a database designer in such industries as military weapons, business systems, communications, and medical equipment.

It was during her 8.5 years at Microsoft that she became active in diversity. In 1995 Trish worked as a Senior Diversity Administrator. She traveled the country to recruit college level technically trained people of color and found that the pool of people she had to choose from was very small.

Trish realized that in order to increase the number of qualified people coming out of college, she would need to find a way to increase the number of people of color enrolling in university to pursue technical degrees. Capturing the interest of children of color early in their lives, and providing them with the opportunity to become users and creators of technology is the foundation on which the Technology Access Foundation is based.

In 1996, Trish left the technology industry and with support and help of friends and family, created the Technology Access Foundation (TAF).

TAF's vision is to make education a priority in underserved communities of color. Serving one child at a time, TAF enhances their educational and professional prospects through the delivery of tools for learning in the 21st century. We will use our demonstrable success to establish our leadership in educational reform and expand the reach of our model.

TAF programs are rooted in project based learning, and are designed to increase problem solving, critical thinking, information synthesis, and communication skills.

In addition to her work at TAF, Trish has served on numerous boards of organizations that focus on children and education. Trish has received dozens of local and national awards for her work educating children of color.

A native of New Jersey, Trish attended Monmouth University (then known as Monmouth College) and received a B.S. in Computer Science in 1979.

In June 2001, she received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Seattle University.

Trish and her partner are the proud parents of 4 children.

Go to www.techaccess.org for more information about the important work that the Technology Access Foundation is doing and ways you can get involved.