Robot Preserves Indigenous Language: Danielle Boyer's SkoBot Project

The Mission to Preserve Indigenous Languages

• 🎯 Danielle Boyer, an inventor and educator, is dedicated to preserving endangered Indigenous languages through technology.
• ⚠️ UNESCO estimates that only 20 Indigenous languages will remain by 2050, highlighting the urgency of language revitalization efforts.
• 💡 Boyer believes that losing a language means losing a crucial part of culture, storytelling, and connection to the world.

The SkoBot: A Language Revitalization Tool

• 🤖 SkoBot is an interactive robot designed to teach children Anishinaabemowin, Boyer's native language, and other Indigenous languages.
• 🧸 Inspired by toys like Talking Elmo, the goal was to create an engaging tool for youth to learn their heritage languages, addressing a lack of accessible resources.
• 🐾 The robot is designed as a cute, animal-like droid, with variants inspired by woodland animals from Boyer's homeland, making it relatable to children.

How SkoBot Works and Its Technology

• 🗣️ Children interact with SkoBot by speaking to it; the robot uses speech recognition to convert speech to text and syncs it with pre-recorded audio files of words and phrases.
• 🧠 The speech recognition component is where Artificial Intelligence is utilized, enabling the robot to understand and respond.
• 🚫 Boyer emphasizes that the AI is for functionality and not for generating synthetic speech or altering the language itself, maintaining the integrity of the language.

Ethical Considerations and Data Sovereignty

• 🤝 Boyer developed an ethical AI framework in consultation with community members and youth to guide the development and use of SkoBot.
• 🚫 A major concern is non-Indigenous organizations exploiting Indigenous languages by recording, copyrighting, and selling them back to communities, or using data scraping for AI models without consent.
• 🔒 The framework prioritizes data sovereignty, ensuring that communities retain control and ownership over their language data, with all software developed internally and kept localized.

The Future of Language Preservation Technology

• 🌍 Boyer advocates for greater representation of Indigenous communities and elders in the development of language preservation technology, rather than relying solely on academia or external experts.
• 🤝 Partnerships with tech companies are valuable when they empower communities to create their own solutions, providing resources and technology without dictating terms, as seen with an AR learning app developed with Snapchat.
• 🌱 The ultimate vision is for technology to authentically reflect and serve Indigenous communities, empowering them to drive their own language revitalization efforts.