That's the event this week. There are 2 days of events, and it's really related to what I'm creating as William. There's also a relationship to what I want to try to do at Concordia, my relational film production, so I want you to analyze the different events that are in these 2 days, and try to separate them and try to start, you know, maybe an outreach profiling of each of the speakers: the potential content, it should be something that's going to help me try to organize my attending to this event and knowing that it's going to happen, and probably also try to see to which one I should focus on exploring. You could introduce each of the event with 55 words or less in about the academic fields that the speaker is exploring. As well as try to help me understand who each of the speakers is going to be
Based on the event program for July 16-17, 2026, this is an Indigenous-led AI gathering featuring speakers working at the intersection of Indigenous knowledge systems, data sovereignty, and artificial intelligence. Here's my analysis organized to help you navigate the two days strategically:
Day 1 - July 16th: Key Sessions
Keynote: Krystle Tsosie (11:25-12:00)
"Data has Descendants: Indigenous Data Lifecycles and Stewardship"
Tsosie (Diné/Navajo) is a genetic epidemiologist and bioethicist at Arizona State University specializing in Indigenous genomic data sovereignty. She co-founded the Native BioData Consortium, the first U.S. Indigenous-led biobank governed by Tribal Nations. Her work examines how genomic data intersects with AI/ML, ancient DNA, and forensic applications while centering Indigenous governance over data across temporal scales.12
Relevance to your work: Directly aligns with your Indigenous knowledge representation systems and computational frameworks—her "data has descendants" concept could inform your narrative knowledge management approach.
Fireside Chat: Keoni Mahelona (13:10-13:55)
"Kindling the Future: Lessons from the Tech Journey"
Mahelona (Kanaka Māoli) is CTO of Te Hiku Media, leading indigenous language AI development. He built te reo Māori speech recognition models with 92% accuracy using NVIDIA NeMo and A100 GPUs, all housed on sovereign Māori servers. His work pioneered the Kaitiakitanga license ensuring data sovereignty and inspired similar projects for Hawaiian and Mohawk peoples.345
Relevance: His technical stack (open-source NeMo, local GPU infrastructure, community-governed data) directly parallels your LangGraph agent systems and terminal-based workflows. Strong overlap with your Indigenous-computational integration interests.
Panel: Arctic Intelligence (15:30-16:15)
Featuring Jasmine Redfern
Limited public information on Redfern, but the panel focuses on AI applications in northern/Arctic Indigenous contexts—likely covering climate monitoring, language preservation, and community-specific AI governance challenges in circumpolar regions.
Relevance: Could provide insights into Indigenous AI frameworks adapted for specific environmental and cultural contexts.
Day 2 - July 17th: Priority Sessions
Panel: Mapping Abundance (9:10-9:55)
Moderator: Hugo Larochelle
Larochelle is Scientific Director of Mila (Quebec AI Institute), trained under Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton. He pioneered neural autoregressive modeling (central to generative AI), denoising autoencoders, and zero-shot learning concepts. Former head of Google Brain Montreal, now leading 1,500 researchers at Mila while focusing on biodiversity applications.6789
Relevance: Strong local connection (Montreal-based, Concordia proximity). His moderation suggests technical depth—this panel could bridge mainstream AI research with Indigenous approaches. Valuable for understanding how academic AI institutions engage with Indigenous research networks.
Spotlight: Petera Hudson (9:55-10:10)
"An Indigenous Framework for Editing Indigenous Stories"
Hudson is a Māori filmmaker developing Indigenous-centered frameworks for film production and narrative editing. His work likely explores how Indigenous epistemologies can reshape documentary editing, storytelling structures, and visual narrative construction.10
Relevance: High priority for you. Direct connection to your "relational film production" at Concordia. Hudson's framework could inform how you structure Indigenous narrative systems in computational environments and how film editing can embody Indigenous relationality.
Panel: Collaboration Beyond Borders (10:25-11:20)
Featuring Peter-Lucas Jones, Eliane Ubalijoro, and Caroline Running Wolf
Peter-Lucas Jones (Te Aupōuri, Ngāi Takoto, Ngāti Kahu) is CEO of Te Hiku Media and partner to Keoni Mahelona. Named to TIME's 100 AI list (2024), he leads Māori language NLP tool development and champions Indigenous data sovereignty and AI-driven language licensing. He's a broadcaster and advocate for intergenerational transmission of te reo Māori.111213
Eliane Ubalijoro: Limited details available, but context suggests expertise in agriculture, knowledge systems, or African Indigenous research networks (Rwanda connection likely).
Caroline Running Wolf: Indigenous technology advocate (potentially related to Michael Running Wolf mentioned in Day 1).
Relevance: This panel on grassroots networks could reveal coordination strategies for distributed Indigenous AI initiatives—relevant to your multi-agent systems and networked collaboration interests.
Keynote: Solomon Enos (11:20-11:50)
"Ancestral Imagination: Art and Algorithms"
Enos is a Native Hawaiian artist, illustrator, and activist whose work appears at the National Museum of the American Indian and Bishop Museum. His urban art aesthetic asserts Indigenous presence and articulates visions of Indigenous futures, grounding contemporary art in ancestral knowledge.1415
Relevance: Priority for creative-technical synthesis. Enos's "art and algorithms" theme bridges your music composition practice with computational systems. Could provide conceptual frameworks for how algorithms can embody ancestral logic and creative Indigenous futurism.
Strategic Recommendations
Must-attend for technical depth: Keoni Mahelona fireside chat (Day 1) and Hugo Larochelle panel (Day 2)—these offer concrete implementation patterns for Indigenous AI sovereignty.
Must-attend for conceptual frameworks: Krystle Tsosie keynote (Day 1), Petera Hudson spotlight (Day 2), and Solomon Enos keynote (Day 2)—these will inform your relational film production and Indigenous knowledge representation work.
Networking priorities: Connect with Te Hiku Media team (Mahelona/Jones), Mila researchers, and Hudson for potential Concordia collaboration on Indigenous narrative frameworks in computational systems. <span style="display:none">161718192021222324252627282930313233343536373839404142434445464748495051525354555657585960616263646566676869707172737475767778798081828384858687888990919293949596979899100101102103</span>
<div align="center">⁂</div>Footnotes
-
https://calendar.utk.edu/event/drkrystaltsosie-dna-and-data-across-time-ancestor-stewardship-for-indigenous-futures ↩
-
https://www.olin.edu/articles/story-olin-alum-using-ai-preserve-te-reo-maori ↩
-
https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/te-hiku-media-maori-speech-ai/ ↩
-
https://observer.com/2025/09/hugo-larochelle-succeeds-yoshua-bengio-mila/ ↩
-
https://mila.quebec/fr/nouvelle/hugo-larochelle-devient-le-nouveau-directeur-scientifique-de-mila ↩
-
https://www.globaldatainnovation.com/speaker/peter-lucas-jones ↩
-
https://www.science.org/content/article/scienceadviser-shifting-harm-resilience ↩
-
https://ges.research.ncsu.edu/event/ges-colloquium-2022-11-08/ ↩
-
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/how-indigenous-scientists-are-using-biomedical-research-to-seek-genomic-justice-1.6190855 ↩
-
file-1.pdf ↩
-
Film_GUILLAUME_60619.docx ↩
-
Indigenous-Language-Revitalization-and-Studies-in-Quebec-Awikhiganisaskak-Project-and-Academic-Pathways.md ↩
-
Recommendations-for-medicine-wheel-Framework-Centering-Indigenous-Protocol-in-Computational-Practice--260604--dc4b6f08-8dd0-4809-b40b-c534ecc66dd4.docx ↩
-
Indigenous-Language-Revitalization-and-Studies-in-Quebec-Awikhiganisaskak-Project-and-Academic-Pathways.docx ↩
-
deep search 250912 - Project Chimera: Academic Literature Survey and Institutional Mapping .md ↩
-
Abundant_Intelligences__placing_AI_within_Indigenous_knowledge_frameworks__Article_s00146-024-02099-4.pdf ↩
-
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e233bd63f80af952f79ae307833aba60871e79f5 ↩
-
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2021.742467/full ↩
-
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15265161.2021.1965259 ↩
-
http://datascience.codata.org/articles/10.5334/dsj-2020-043/galley/1010/download/ ↩
-
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/indigenous-data-sovereignty-interview-dr-krystal-tsosie-iay5c ↩
-
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/genetics-krystal-tsosie-indigenous-data-sovereignty ↩
-
https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/indigenous-data-sovereignty/ ↩
-
https://news.asu.edu/20250917-science-and-technology-safe-harbor-indigenous-data-inside-d4i-tribal-data-repository ↩
-
https://aiforgood.itu.int/event/protecting-indigenous-biodiversity-through-dna-data-and-ai/ ↩
-
https://elsihub.org/sites/default/files/video-transcripts/Summary - February 2023 EFF.pdf ↩
-
https://healthsciences.arizona.edu/events/data-relationality-and-data-relations-embedding-indigenous-genomic-data-sovereignty-ecology ↩
-
http://www.modernlanguagesopen.org/articles/10.3828/mlo.v0i0.578/ ↩
-
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/08e11a534e62f89a962f409c9570575463eb2833 ↩
-
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1833367218000044/type/journal_article ↩
-
https://www.syncsci.com/journal/AERE/article/view/AERE.2023.01.003 ↩
-
https://www.itu.int/initiatives/sdgdigital/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/09/Michael-Running-Wolf-bio.pdf ↩
-
https://blog.siggraph.org/2023/01/living-fearlessly-in-computer-graphics.html/ ↩
-
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/runningwolf_how-indigenous-engineers-are-using-ai-to-activity-7268456182518816768-lkz0 ↩
-
https://www.khoury.northeastern.edu/from-atari-games-to-ar-vr-michael-running-wolf-is-revitalizing-indigenous-languages/ ↩
-
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/runningwolf_indigenous-ai-activity-7236754503352393729-D1Fj ↩
-
https://storage.googleapis.com/jnl-up-j-mlo-files/journals/1/articles/578/69b165a9f3bfa.pdf ↩
-
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/runningwolf_silr-indigenous-ai-activity-7305414878289084417-dsi4 ↩
-
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/runningwolf_indigenous-ai-activity-7346261464573165570-dTvh ↩
-
https://radicalimagination.us/episodes/ai-maori-language-learning ↩
-
https://www.emerald.com/jet/article/20/1/27/1319041/Beyond-transparency-why-explainable-AI-is ↩
-
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ccbaee427804751c9cc5165664e8e7afc9873634 ↩
-
https://www.techrxiv.org/articles/preprint/_tea_Presence_Enabling_Virtual_Storytelling_Presence_and_Tele-Co-Presence_in_an_Indigenous_Setting/16455690/files/30476190.pdf ↩
-
https://publications.ascilite.org/index.php/APUB/article/download/498/614 ↩
-
https://www.staradvertiser.com/2025/05/02/editorial/5-questions-with/5-questions-keoni-mahelona-te-hiku-media-cto/ ↩
-
https://kawaiola.news/on-the-continent/faces-of-the-diaspora-building-artificial-intelligence-through-a-native-lens/ ↩
-
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/internet-culture/keoni-mahelona-mozilla-rise-25-data-protection/ ↩
-
https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/04/22/1050394/artificial-intelligence-for-the-people/ ↩
-
https://techwontsave.us/episode/177_big_tech_wont_revitalize_indigenous_languages_w_keoni_mahelona ↩
-
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6933e1.htm?s_cid=mm6933e1_w ↩
-
https://ascopubs.org/doi/10.1200/JCO.2021.39.15_suppl.12084 ↩
-
https://bcpublication.org/index.php/SSH/article/download/2361/2340 ↩
-
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/hugo-larochelle-becomes-scientific-director-100000022.html ↩
-
https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/article/quebec-ai-institute-mila-names-hugo-larochelle-as-scientific-director/ ↩
-
https://e-tangata.co.nz/korero/peter-lucas-jones-storing-our-reo-treasures/ ↩
-
https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0092867422007826 ↩
-
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780429273957/chapters/10.4324/9780429273957-14 ↩
-
https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-genom-022024-125543 ↩
-
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcosc.2023.1099562/full ↩
-
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15265161.2021.1891347 ↩