The people behind TechTank

Thannia Blanchet

she/her

Organizer

Thannia co-runs CodeDiversity alongside Niki and has spoken at multiple TechTank events. She’s been a Front-End Software Engineer since 2014 and moved to Toronto in 2023, where shortly after she met TechTank by a matter of destiny, she was the only one available to show them the office to host an event. In TechTank, she has found community and friends, and decided to use it to continue her mission of promoting diversity, equality, inclusion, and lifting everyone up. Outside of tech, Thannia enjoys different things: drawing, acting, muay thai, and roller derby: a sport you should totally check out.

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Tony Ko

he/him

Digital Lead & Organizer

Tony leads TechTank's web team while serving as an organizer. By day, he's a Staff Software Engineer working where engineering, design, and product thinking meet. He's shipped products for Aeroplan, Loblaws, and a few others you'd recognize. He showed up early, camera in hand, doing whatever the community needed: events, copy, posters. What kept him was the people: their energy, the way quick conversations turned into real ones. To Tony, the most valuable thing TechTank offers isn't a talk or a networking opportunity, it's what happens between. That steady involvement grew into leading the web team. He now shapes every detail online, so it reflects the same quality felt in person. Outside of TechTank, he's drawn to experiences worth remembering. Good food, music, dance, hosting socials, new cities, and a creative eye that spans photography, 3D and industrial design.

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Natasha Kasunic

she/her

Natasha is one of TechTank's newer volunteers! She's a Technical Customer Success Lead at Tightknit, a small startup building an app for community builders, where she sits between the engineering and the humans using it, translating one to the other. Computer science at Waterloo gave her the technical half; the years since taught her the part that actually matters, which is people. She came to TechTank as an attendee first and found something she didn't expect: a room full of community leaders, operators, and builders, who happen to be her favourite kind of person. So she started pitching in. What's kept her around isn't any single event but the in-between, the hallway conversation that turns into a real one, and the way a good community quietly makes space for people, women in tech especially, to find their footing. She's early in her TechTank story, which is the fun part. Expect to see her wherever the community needs an extra set of hands. When she's not here, she's doing stand-up comedy, crocheting, fencing, or digital nomading her way to somewhere new.

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Eileen Xue

she/her

Eileen is a Tech Lead, Product at Curacity, a platform that helps hospitality brands reach travellers through media and AI-driven discovery. Beyond her day job, she's a Women Techmakers Ambassador and an active member of several women-in-tech communities. Her TechTank story started in the pandemic, attending virtual events and slowly getting to know the community. A chance run-in at a conference with current co-chair Niki (who, as it turns out, went to undergrad with Eileen's husband) led to an invitation to Code Diversity. That small-world moment has kept her showing up ever since. Today she volunteers wherever help is needed: events, participation, community engagement, and the in-between moments that make a community feel real. She believes TechTank is for everyone in tech, not just developers, and hopes people leave with a connection they didn't expect and a sense that they belong here. When she's not here, she's somewhere in the world or somewhere in Toronto chasing a great meal. Sushi and steak are her love languages, ideally on the same menu.

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