Our scholarship application is now live!
Indigenous youth tech and entrepreneurship awards, plus Jeff Ward in BetaKit
Boozhoo News River Readers,
It’s been a busy past week for Animikii and Indigenous tech in the news. Read this interview with Jeff Ward for BetaKit, and another mention here: Setting the pace in data sovereignty and AI adoption.
Animikii Thunderbirds are also gathering together for our in-person team retreat this week - and there’s very little ‘business’ on the agenda (only a smidge, and maybe a smudge!) As a distributed team spanning 4 time zones, we’ll be prioritizing time together in nature, chats over tea and coffee, and family style meals. We are humans first - and our roles and responsibilities second.
And our annual scholarship application is now live! Details below - its only open for the month of October👇
Technology and Entrepreneurship Awards For Indigenous Youth
The Big Picture: Animikii’s annual awards are now open for application from October 1 and will close on October 31, 2026. Two (2) awards of $1000 CAD each are available to Indigenous youth ages 17-30! Open to applicants who are attending a post-secondary program with a focus on either technology or entrepreneurship - and all academic levels are welcome. People with an innovative business idea or a new business under two (2) years old are also eligible to apply - no education required.
Why we think it matters: Every path to success is different. That’s why we have two awards. One is a scholarship for those pursuing academic programs. The second is a grant for those taking a more entrepreneurial route to bring their dreams to life.
How to apply: Complete the application form, by sharing your journey in your own words. Part of decolonizing the scholarship process means we are not reviewing your text submission for spelling, grammar, or 'professionalism.' Our internal scholarship review committee is most excited to hear from real people with real stories!
➡️Forward this email to Indigenous youth in your community!
More curated reads
Shared Waters: Kinship in Environmental Journalism
Environmental reporting must be both local and global - In Halifax, we'll continue building the connections, context and collaboration that define environmental journalism around the globe today. From the shores of the Atlantic, we'll gather to celebrate Indigeneity, international perspectives, our global interdependence and the stories shaping a hopeful future for the beat. Our theme, Shared Waters: Kinship in Environmental Journalism, starts with the Atlantic at our doorstep and follows the watersheds, fisheries and stories that cross every border, for our first conference outside the U.S. in our 36-year history.
Ownership, Licensing, and Cultural Memory: Development and Design of the Uke’ Contracting System
Researchers, artists, journalists, and others engaged in storytelling often rely on the time, effort, knowledge, and emotions from community voices. These lived experiences and traditional knowledge are transformed into images, recordings, and videos. Uke’ Contracting System considers how anyone creating oral history or traditional knowledge interviews as part of research or production inquiry ensures the rights of their recordings belong to the knowledge owner. The Uke’ Contracting System re-imagines how storytelling and information gathering can be made to be immediately equitable by giving sole ownership of digital content to the knowledge holder at the initial fixation of copyright for sound, video, and image recordings. This webinar will introduce the open-access contract template. It will share the story of the document’s origins, walk through the design and development, discuss the use case, and show some early results of use. The development team will be on hand to answer questions and workshop how the template could be best applied within your project.
Beyond inclusion: Indigenous knowledge, food and water security, and climate resilience
Increasingly, health, food, and environmental policy recognize the interconnectedness of climate change, food systems, water security, and health. The pronounced impacts of climate change, including disruptions to ecosystems, agricultural practices, water availability, and traditional harvesting, compound food insecurity and adverse health outcomes, particularly for Indigenous communities. However, despite some policy reform, dominant approaches often remain fragmented, emphasizing infrastructure, market-based food access, scientific monitoring, or adaptation technologies without adequately addressing colonial land dispossession, socioeconomic inequities, environmental degradation, and the governance structures that shape vulnerability in the first place. Indigenous leadership is a question of research governance, not simply community engagement. Indigenous leadership means more than having Indigenous peoples represented at meetings or identifying Indigenous Nations as research ‘partners’.
Indigenous-led project tackles misinformation
A new Indigenous-led research project is to bring together community members, Elders, knowledge keepers, educators, students and researchers to address misinformation about Canadian Indigenous people, culture and communities. The project named Ihtsitomaniista’po’tako’p, meaning working together, is let by the Ninastako Cultural Centre in partnership with Lethbridge Polytechnic’s Centre for Public Safety Applied Research (CPSAR) and seeks to understand how misinformation about Indigenous people spreads, the impact it has on communities and what can be done to address it. Kirsten Fantazir, chair of CPSAR says its imperative for the polytechnic to not only make sure their research is done through an evidence-based lens, but also help squash the misinformation that has been spread about Indigenous people.
This week, Alex and Emily are joined by Keoni Mahelona of Te Hiku Media to discuss Indigenous language technology. They discuss problems that arise when Big Tech tries to bring its "solutions" into this space, and best practices for research and development that center the expertise, cultural norms and goals of Indigenous communities. Keoni Mahelona is the CTO of Te Hiku Media and a Native Hawaiian from the island of Kaua'i. He's a driving force behind the development of sovereign digital technologies that aim to protect and promote Indigenous languages, knowledge, culture, and now democracy.
Resources and opportunities
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