Indigenous data governance in practice, from cancer research to totem pole innovation
Plus a super inspiring story out of Arizona where youth are teaching Elders tech skills.
Boozhoo News River Readers,
This week the theme emerging is Indigenous data governance in practice, from cancer research to a totem pole carved with a advanced manufacturing techniques and mechanisms. Plus a super inspiring story out of Arizona where youth are teaching Elders tech skills.
Mya Thompson is helping shape Indigenous data governance in cancer research
Ontario Institute for Cancer Research
Mya Thompson, a U of T undergrad and Haudenosaunee from Six Nations of the Grand River, is spending her summer building Indigenous data sovereignty into the Ontario Hereditary Cancer Research Network, drafting cultural competency training and data-access procedures. Her framing of the researcher's role is the line to keep:
"Researchers should always keep in mind they do not own the data, it's on loan to them." she says.
Native American elders face a technology gap. This organization aims to fix it
KJZZ
Data sovereignty means little if Elders can't get online in the first place. Native Health, a community health center in Arizona, ran a workshop series called Elder Tech 101 for roughly 20 Native American elders aged 55 and up, and each participant took home a tablet. As CEO Walter Murillo put it:
"Our goal here is to make sure that we have a usable device and we walk them through everyday living so that it becomes more comfortable for them, and they are able to participate in things like health care and in banking and other things."
More workshops are planned this year. This kind of innovation could be brought to any community!
Camosun Innovates recognized for Totem 2.0
Nexus (Camosun College)
Technology serving culture, literally. Camosun Innovates won a Land Award for Totem 2.0, built with Kwakwaka'wakw and Coast Salish artist Carey Newman. As old-growth cedar grows scarce, the team engineered a way to carve ceremonial totems from second-growth beams, held on a "rotisserie" rig that works like a traditional trunk. Newman's father, too old to move around the trunks as he once did, realized he could carve again on the new apparatus.
Add a comment: