Danielle Boyer is an Anishinaabe (enrolled Sault Tribe) educator, robotics inventor, activist, and visionary. She delivered Carleton’s final convocation of fall term on Friday, November 7, from 10:50 to 11:50 a.m. in Skinner Chapel. Boyer’s mission has centered around sharing robotics knowledge and language revitalization with Indigenous children, looking at how emerging technologies can be ethically used to drive Indigenous-led efforts for cultural preservation. Her address is titled, “From Bytes to Bright Futures: Robots Changing the World.”

An antiracist future is a decolonized future, and this means addressing our power dynamics. We talked about representation, that’s awesome, but it’s very hard to gain footing when it’s representation in someone else’s system and they have power there. We need to lead our own solutions for our own communities, and this looks like different things for all of us.”

—Danielle Boyer for the MIT Solve Antiracist and Indigenous Futures Summit

As an adolescent, Boyer’s interest in robotics was challenged by the reality that her family was unable to financially support her learning. This experience, paired with seeing few girls and Indigenous people participating in robotics, has fueled her groundbreaking initiatives to facilitate robotics learning. In 2019, Boyer founded The STEAM Connection, an Indigenous youth-run nonprofit that designs, manufactures, and gives away robots aimed at educating and empowering Indigenous youth. Recently, Boyer developed SkoBot, a wearable language revitalization robot for a widening variety of Indigenous languages, with software designed to teach endangered Indigenous languages. SkoBot is designed to supplement language-learning programs, as Boyer maintains the importance of interpersonal interaction in the learning of Indigenous languages. Made of recycled bioplastic, SkoBots are designed and created for Indigenous learning programs and communities, free of charge. Boyer’s work first gained traction through her other major project, Every Kid Gets a Robot, an initiative through which STEAM Connection manufactures robotic kits to distribute to youth for free, with the goal of teaching STEM skills to underserved and Indigenous communities. As of this year, STEAM Connection has reached over one million youth scholars with representative educational resources.

Boyer’s inspirational work is widely recognized; she is a National Geographic Young Explorer, Echoing Green Fellow, two-time MIT Solve Fellow, Washington Post Next Changemaker, and Teen Vogue Indigenous Youth Changemaker. She has spoken at the White House twice and addressed the UNESCO Headquarters on Indigenous languages. She was featured in a MIT Solve documentary that earned a Webby, Sundance Brand Storytelling Award, Tribeca X Award, and SXSW Feature.

Learn more about Carleton Convos at go.carleton.edu/convocations