Boozhoo News River Readers,

We’re entering the final month of the calendar year, and reflecting on the important work our team has helped move foraward. We care about who we’re working with and what drives them.

We’ve collaborated with Indigenous Nations, universities, school districts and community organizations to develop sophisticated tools to amplify Indigenous ways of knowing and being and to advance Truth and Reconciliation on Indigenous terms.

Our unique approach to impact assessment, technical requirements gathering, product visioning, project and fundraising planning - is called Pathfinding. It's a process designed to ensure we build the right project, the right way, for Indigenous Rights Holders.

To see if Pathfinding is right for you and your technology project - click here!

Thanks for being here, and as always - here’s the news,

This week’s stories include:  

• Post-secondary institutions taking steps to honour Indigenous data sovereignty.

• Jace Poirier Lacerte and Ryan St. Germaine chat about AI on the new RIZE Up podcast.

• Nominations are currently open for the inaugural DARE Innovation Awards.

Niiwin featured by Future of Good

The big picture: Indigenous governments and communities are seeking bespoke digital tools that respect their rights to data sovereignty, ownership and privacy. Animikii has launched Niiwin after more than two years in development. 

Why it matters: Indigenous data governance and sovereignty frameworks emphasize that Indigenous peoples should have the authority to own, control and access their own data. By design, many software platforms and digital tools do not respect those rights.

Key points: 

• Niiwin is a data management platform that the company has been testing internally before bringing it to the public.

• It is particularly designed for Indigenous governments, communities and organizations for two reasons: it has the ability to develop custom data fields, and it boasts the flexibility to host data closer to home.

• Animikii has launched a fellowship to offer organizations a complimentary year of access to Niiwin. The company is encouraging Indigenous nations, museums, archival institutions, researchers, and environmental groups to apply.

What they’re saying: “Oftentimes, as Indigenous people, we have to put our data into other colonial buckets of data,” Ward said, adding that this is common in how Indigenous communities are expected to send and receive data from the Canadian government. Niiwin, on the other hand, allows users to set up data fields that align with what they would like to measure and track. 

Learn more: Read the full article at Future of Good.

Curated Articles:

Honouring Indigenous Data Sovereignty in Ceremony and Practice: A Collaborative Pathway at the University of Alberta

Over the past few years, a number of Canadian postsecondary institutions have begun initiating Indigenous data sovereignty initiatives. However, very few have moved beyond the development of a webpage that points to existing principles and guidelines, such as OCAP and CARE or the Tri-Agency Research Data Management Policy, which includes a component on Indigenous data sovereignty. This situation causes academics and Indigenous peoples, communities, and Nations to wonder: (a) what Indigenous data sovereignty looks like in practice, and (b) how we can go beyond self-education to move towards implementation and service, with Indigenous data sovereignty as a core principle embedded in our work. In 2022, the University of Alberta’s Supporting Indigenous Language Revitalization (SILR) research team partnered with the University of Alberta Library’s Research Data Management and Digital Repositories teams to collaboratively map a path for the university to begin taking steps to honour Indigenous data sovereignty.

The Urgent Need for Data Equity, Justice, and Sovereignty

Transforming civic data in the United States is essential to improve our collective health and well-being. Imagine trying to navigate an unfamiliar city with a broken compass. The needle appears steady and reliable, instilling confidence in each turn you take. But unbeknownst to you, every step leads you further off course. You keep walking, trusting the instrument in your hand. But your confidence is misplaced: The compass is broken—faulty and unreliable, and you’re steadily moving in the wrong direction. This broken compass is much like the civic data we use in the United States today. Civic data attempts to capture and describe the realities of public life and community well-being. But data is never neutral or objective.

Pulitzer Center's AI Spotlight Series

This toolkit builds on the Pulitzer Center’s AI Spotlight Series, an initiative designed to expand the field of AI accountability reporting by equipping journalists worldwide with the skills and knowledge necessary to cover AI critically and responsibly. We have conducted more than two dozen webinars and in-person sessions since 2024 and have trained nearly 3,000 journalists across the globe in seven languages. In an effort to make the AI Spotlight Series resources even more accessible, we are open-sourcing the course modules, slide decks, and videos produced by our instructors who are some of the world’s leading tech reporters and editors. We invite journalists to access, adapt, and build on a growing body of knowledge to strengthen AI accountability reporting worldwide.

AI - The Good, The Bad, and The In-Between with Jace Poirier Lacerte and Ryan St. Germaine
AI is everywhere these days. At Decolonize and Rize we’ve grappled with how or if we should use AI. We know the allure and usefulness of AI and we’re also mindful of the vast amounts of ethical concerns with it. We had a great chat at yesterday's RIZE Up event with Jace Poirier Lacerte and Ryan St. Germaine on AI. We walked away with new insights and perspectives and for that we're grateful. (Everything you read and see here was created by a human – not AI).

DARE Innovation Awards aim to spotlight Manitoba’s boldest thinkers.

North Forge, a nonprofit incubator supporting Manitoban startups, is preparing to host the inaugural DARE Innovation Awards presented by Bell MTS. The awards, slotted in as a marquee event during Tech Manitoba’s Tech Week, will spotlight founders, researchers, Indigenous innovators, media creators, social-impact leaders and more. Importantly, the awards are open to all Manitobans, no matter where they live — from Winnipeg to northern and remote communities. Nominations are currently open and will close on December 1, the same day general-admission tickets for the gala go on sale.