Ahi: Nation-building Technology

Rebuilding Indigenous Nations is intergenerational and long term. The meaningful change Nations are wanting to see happen often times takes years, if not decades, to appropriately implement and see the impacts. These projects span political terms (federal, provincial and local), and require a project champion to continue to breathe life into projects and keep the leadership informed. Many indigenous organizations are under resourced, having to drive a lot of different projects and work on issues that are not in their job descriptions, leading to burnout and high turnover of staff. Change in leadership, change in administration and change in political priorities of funders are major impacts to those long-standing changes that Indigenous community members want to see. These continual turnovers also discourage partnership building, as partners may see this as too risky to invest time, attention and funds to, without some security that projects won’t be cancelled partway through. In some instances, Indigenous organizations may not have the expertise or knowledge in-house and do not have the partnerships established or funds available to secure consultants to assist in developing a project. While Indigenous populations are the most researched populations, many times the information is sitting on shelves, in libraries and online journal databases where indigenous communities don’t have access to, or the time to do the research to learn more. So while Indigenous decision makers are looking to make informed and timely decisions that will benefit  their communities and future generations, there is a disconnect between the expertise, decision makers and continuity of information. 

Ahi: is the Cayuga word for Idea. Ahi: Technologies are not intended to replace decision makers, but are tools to help Indigenous Leaders make those decisions. Leaders where put in those roles because they have the trust and familiarity with their communities that can never be replicated by technology. Ahi: seeks to be the consistency that spans time and helps filter information for communities to access research and expertise to make informed decisions and action nation-building. Based on principles of OCAP, Indigenous communities are able to create their own databases and filters of relevance and nationhood to have AI recommend strategies for actioning their nation-building initiatives. For example, if a council had a revenues they wanted to invest in the community, Ahi: would be able to assess what community priorities had investment, if the investments were meeting their metrics of success and what priorities were underfunded. If for example one priority was food sovereignty, Ahi: would show the projects happening in that area, funding and partners associated with the work. It may show that there is a big interest in food sovereignty from this present-day federal government and academia so there is little need for more investment. However, another priority may be language development where there is a shortage of funding due to Indigenous languages not being a high priority for government spending. Ahi: would show how much money is needed to run an effective program short term and long term, what the metrics of success are for a year and it would help leadership know where to invest. Typical governments look to metrics of wellbeing through the evaluation of GDP, tax-base or minimal deficits. Ahi: allows Indigenous Nations to action self-determination and self-governance by giving them tools to determine what wellbeing means for their community and the tools to action and govern those decisions. It would also provide a portal for networking and building alliances, so that industry players and academic institutions can see alignment and build partnerships based on community priorities, not the other way around. 

Ahi: will focused on Indigenous nations in Canada at first, but it could be scaled for any indigenous nation worldwide. Essentially Ahi: is the action of self-determination and self-governance. Ahi: seeks to streamline information management and arrange the data based on community values and perspectives to create efficiencies for administrative staff and leaders to make decisions more quickly and based on the most relevant and up to date information they have. Creating these efficiencies also works to alleviate some of the administrative overload on staff, lessening burnout and supporting individual wellbeing for their staff. 

I have been working in this area for over 17 years. I began my career as the community planner for my First Nation. I have worked for grassroots organizations, community-based organizations, provincial and national First Nations advocacy organizations and for industry working on indigenous partnerships. I have seen the challenges from many angles. I am in my last semesters of a MSc where I am researching frameworks, processes and evaluators for Indigenous Nation-building and community wellbeing. There has been a lot of research from a health and mental health perspective on Indigenous wellbeing from an individual perspective but not from a collective perspective. These tools will provide a way to action the research and assist indigenous leaders in making decisions based on their cultural values and future generations.

I have been refining the concept based on my work and experience. I have done some interviews and market research based on a concept and have continued to refined the idea.
I have developed a Business Model Canvas based on the concept to determine who would be the customers would be, and what additional services could be implemented to scale the business.

I have a very basic understanding of what coding and AI is, and I believe that Ahi: would translate well, however I do not have the technical expertise and I don’t know how to secure the expertise without losing the concept to a competitor. While my main need is technical, I would also value legal support and financial support as well. I feel confident in the business development and creating a culture for the business. 

I am a member of the community and I presently live there. I have worked for my nation as the community planner and as a political advisor. I presently have a contract with the elected council on governance matters and developing a political strategy. I have worked with a variety of indigenous communities across Canada on a variety of projects from meeting facilitation, strategy development, community engagement, policy development and political advocacy.