IndigiGenius originated from a collaboration between the NeurIPS affinity group: Indigenous in AI, and the nonprofit organization, Natives in Tech, after they produced a summer program in 2022 called the Lakota AI Code Camp. This summer program was the catalyst that justified the need for a standalone organization to house the Lakota AI Code Camp (LAICC) in order to scale, but not just the camps were catalyzed. The increased demand for AI Code Camps exacerbated the need to increase the number of Indigenous instructors needed to scale camps to more Indigenous communities.
On October 21, 2022, IndigiGenius began as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization incorporated in the state of Washington. The Lakota AI Code Camp’s original team now serve as the board of directors and Executive Director. LAICC was held for a second year in June 2023 and is considered the pilot program that brought this nonprofit organization recognition and success before inception. More programs, projects, participants, and partnerships will come from these program implementations.
IndigiGenius is an Indigenous-led team of data scientists, developers, and educators.
Board of Directors
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Michael Running Wolf (Lakota/Cheyenne)
Board Chairman
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Mason Grimshaw (Lakota)
Vice Chair
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Caroline Running Wolf (Crow)
Treasurer
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Ian Her Many Horses, PhD (Lakota)
Secretary
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Elizabeth Starks (Zuni/Navajo)
Board Member (Education Committee)
Staff and Organization Alumni
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Shawn Tsosie, PhD (Navajo/Little Shell)
Applied Machine Learning Scientist