In a recent Natives in Tech conference, speakers expressed their desire to create their own technology solutions.
Member Adam Recvlohe argued that external vendors and “big tech” don’t understand the fundamentals and needs of Native communities. Therefore, Natives in Tech seeks to establish a progression plan for individuals interested in jobs within the blossoming fields of software development, cybersecurity, networking engineering, and more.
“We want to be able to create technology by ourselves and for ourselves, and not need any outside assistance,” mentioned Recvlohe. “That’s putting our sovereignty at the forefront.”
Recvlohe said Native people are well equipped to create customized technology that works for their communities. The Natives in Tech scholarship fund supports captivated individuals with their education and training by funding coding bootcamps. Recvlohe will continue to expand summer programming for teens.
Within the next 12 months, the tech collective will continue its recruiting efforts and publish papers that explain the most topical matters to its readers. For example, one upcoming topic will explain why some tribal governments have adopted the “.org” domain suffix rather than the “.gov” and what that decisions infers.
The collective also has plans to develop their own tech standards as well as an Indigenous Open Source Software license, meant to protect Native software creators while still opening up the underlying information to others.
“We aren’t just consumers — we need to be producers so that we see technology that is reflective of who we are.”
