Joel Heath, Executive Director – Arctic Eider Society (AES)

October 31st, 2025 – 1:00-2:00pm, EC4-2101A

The Arctic Eider Society (AES) is an Inuit-led charity based in Sanikiluaq, Nunavut, that supports Indigenous self-determination in research, education, and environmental stewardship, and provides tools and services for ice safety, language preservation, and environmental monitoring. AES develops SIKU: The Indigenous Knowledge App, a mobile and web platform that provides tools, services, and training to over 100 active Indigenous-led projects focused on research, monitoring, subsistence harvesting, guardians programs, protected areas establishment, and exploratory fisheries. SIKU users systematically take photos and use tags for Indigenous classification systems using Indigenous Environmental Terminology (IET) on their mobile phones associated with wildlife, ice, weather, and other indicators. Using SIKU, daily observations are transformed from oral history to the quantitative data that has always formed the basis of Indigenous knowledge (IK). Importantly, SIKU incorporates self-determination and Indigenous data sovereignty as a part of its core principles and terms of use that respect IK, the policies and approaches of Indigenous research, and licensing and governance bodies.  This presentation will outline the SIKU app and several case studies of how it is being used to run Indigenous-led research projects as well as new tools incorporating machine learning and Indigenous knowledge systems.