The Indigenous Innovation Initiative seeks to improve all life through Indigenous innovation. Through core values of inclusion, self-determination, sustainability and creativity, we use a gender-lens approach for investment to support First Nation, Inuit and Metis Peoples in Canada to develop and
test innovative ideas that re-inspire healing, imagination and opportunity for their communities, while benefitting all people and the Land.
In collaboration with First Nation, Inuit and Metis Elders, Knowledge Keepers, impact measurement and evaluation practitioners and community members from across Turtle Island (North America) and Australia, we have co-created a culturally rooted Inquiry and Learning Bundle that privileges First Nation, Inuit and Metis Worldviews, Values, Principles and Protocols. Addressing various themes, this action-oriented workshop will immerse participants in a learning model that:
- Is potentially a first of its kind within the Indigenous innovation space
- Reclaims First Nation, Inuit and Metis ways of knowing and being and methodologies for the creation and application of Knowledges
- Asserts inherent rights to self-determination and self-governance
- Seeks to decolonize inquiry and learning within the innovation space in a way that is mutually-beneficial to First Nation, Inuit and Metis Peoples, while strengthening their capacity to lead and participate in these activities in a culturally safe way
The purpose in doing this is to create awareness and recognition for the need to engage in decolonized practices, create partnership opportunities for the Indigenous Innovation Initiative and inform implementation of similar approaches across First Nation, Inuit and Metis communities and the Indigenous innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem more broadly.
