I attended the AI for Good Global Summit to present alongside my peers at TELUS. As one of their Indigenous Advisory Council members, they offered an opportunity to talk about our work together and also share pipikwan pêhtâkwan’s project, wâsikan kisewâtisiwin. With 15,000 attendees from across the globe, each day was packed with speakers, workshops, meetings, robotics demonstrations, networking opportunities, and much more.

Language shapes us; it’s the foundation of everything we are. Language is math, art, and the essence of empathy — of community-building and love. Every time we walk into a book shop, a library or a cafe and pick up a new book we open ourselves up to a sense of radical, rudimentary affinity for the human spirit. In the west, under colonial rule, our education in language is often learned formally: a set of rules, style guides and isolation.