Boozhoo News River Readers,

This week our friends at Abundant Intelligences have published reflections on the recent Indigenous AI Summit.

We also found news of a historic health data sharing agreement in the USA with some very practical examples of what worked for the agreement between Washington state and the Tulalip Tribes. 

From the global perspective it’s exciting to see data sovereignty mentioned in the most recent round of advocacy by the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous People.

And, the Indigenous Data Alliance has announced their webinar series for this upcoming Fall, and Animikii is excited to be part of it!  Here is the post over on LinkedIn.

We hope you’re enjoying your summer News River Express, and if you ever have news to share please feel free to send it over. 

Curated Articles 

"AI for All," minus many? The federal minister pitched Canada's new National AI Strategy to a room full of Indigenous technologists at Mila. For many, it wasn’t exactly what they wanted to hear. Concordia PHD student Robert Marinov on why "AI for All" started sounding like "Inequality for Most."

“Centring such forms of care, responsibility, respect, and reciprocity could help Canadian (and other) governments start moving beyond hollow lip-service in the name of innovation and towards ensuring that everyone – whether Indigenous, non-Indigenous, or even non-human – can see themselves reflected and protected within the ambition towards developing “AI for All”.”

Read the rest here: Abundant Intelligences

A 12-point ask and a funding problem. the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous People (the EMRIP for short) sent the Human Rights Council a plan that includes data sovereignty and language protections. The fund that pays for delegates to show up has eight donor countries and a budget under $2 million. The recommendations are covered well in — Grist and the important issues raised by who gets in the room is covered by IndigiNews.

What Data Sovereignty looks like in practice. The Tulalip Tribes now have the same access to Washington State health data as any other public health authority. The state also changed the default: every data-sharing agreement it signs now carries a Tribal Data Sovereignty appendix.

“Over the long term, better data sharing can allow Tribes to more accurately track diseases, understand populations at risk, and ultimately improve outcomes. Much work remains to strengthen state-Tribal relations. But the process leading to this Tribal DSA and the agreement itself offer valuable takeaways—about building trust and centering Tribal data sovereignty in DOH’s work—that other states can learn from as they advance public health data sharing in their own jurisdictions.”

Read the article via Pew