Introduction
Mikaela Jade plays a significant role in ensuring that First Nations and other communities keep up to date with technology and with the skills required to work with it. She brings to the challenges she faces not only extensive knowledge of technologies, tech education and deployment but also the capability to look at these issues from a First Nations perspective. In considering the role of technologies for First Nations communities she states her intention to move beyond the experience layer (using technology, working in technology etc.) towards a more strategic approach which understands the whole set of technologies that makes an ecosystem work:
“For the longest time, we had been doing digital skills in the experience layer of the technology stack and I had just completed a Master of Applied Cybernetics at ANU, and I had done a deep dive into the six layers of the tech stack. And I was already thinking about how can First Nations people not only contribute to the development of the experience layer in a tech stack, but to look also at all the underlying technologies that make up a tech stack”.
Data Centres & Country
Jade’s active engagement with data centres began after a long-term IT client needed to build a data centre on her tribal country. Under the New South Wales planning instrument, SEARs [Secretary’s Environmental Assessment Requirements], she needed to engage traditional custodians in consultation around the data centre and this process entails very much an understanding of why the Country on which the data centre is built is more than just a piece of Real Estate:
“Western societies view the tech stack starting in the data centre and then the cabling and the hardware that’s attached to Country, but First Nations view the tech stack starting at the Country layer. So we started thinking about how we could bring Country up through the tech stack, starting with the foundational piece of technology that sits on our Country, which is the data centre”..
This process brings in issues of ownership and access -” the technology infrastructure being built on First Nations Country takes away a piece of Country where we can’t practice our culture anymore”. Yet there are processes for designing data centres with the idea of community factored in: “So first and foremost, we can contribute very heavily to the process of getting the development approvals, and in that process, we look at minimizing the risk to cultural and spiritual loss for communities as data centres get placed on that land., We look at offsetting initiatives that will support biodiversity, conservation and the continual practice of culture beyond that patch of land. We also look at the renewable projects that get stood up to augment the energy consumption of the data centre, we look at what plants and landscaping designs can be put in place to minimize the biodiversity risks from the data centre. But most importantly, in the work that we do, we get to contextualize what a data centre is, and no one is more invested in what a data centre is than the people whose land it’s going to be on and neighbouring people also”.
So, how well does this process work? Jade sees that there’s an enormous room for improvement in the way that data centres act as good corporate citizens and that there is a responsibility to ensure that First Nations people are engaged with the operation of the data centre also.”So it’s not just about standing it up. It’s about how do our people get involved in helping to run it, in helping to shape the future of it? And one of the key questions that our elders always ask, without fail, when we’re going through these processes, is, what is the end of life plan for the data centre?”
So, what happens when the data centre is decommissioned commands particular attention: ”Some of the architects have told our community that the end of life isn’t for 40 years, but we make sure that there’s a Youth Advisory Council involved in the process so our young people can remember the commitments that are made in standing it up”.
Technology plays a key role in this process by using machine learning techniques with the community to help ‘sign’ the building and to help put cultural expressions onto it: This means “It doesn’t just become an ugly building that sits in our Country, but our storying is all over it as well. So our communities can see our cultural footprint on this building. They can see our connection to that place, and it becomes a welcoming place for our people,”
Building Data Centre Careers
Indigital looks also to place First Nations young people into employment, including working in data centres:
“We have only been doing this work for three years, and we have been working towards pathways that are culturally acceptable for our people to join the industry. And every time we do this process, there’s always a few young people that express interest in going further. There’s been a bit of a barrier, though, because it’s difficult to understand what the pathways are into the sector and to ensure that there are coaches that can support our role”.
Jade sees data centres as offering a range of opportunities for young people across all local communities: “we’re working with communities looking at firstly contextualizing the data centre in their backyard, secondly, helping them understand the pathways into the sector, should they want to work in that type of career, and really introducing those opportunities through a culturally respectful and a through a human lens, rather than a technology lens to help people understand that actually, anyone can work in this sector”.
However, there are issues when it comes to promoting careers in data centres: “My mob, the Dharug mob, we have had intergenerational plans for what our young people should be focusing their attention on, and they traditionally have been career pathways such as doctors, lawyers, the justice sector and indigenous health and in careers that are well paid and serve the community well. When you put an opportunity like working in a data centre on the table, there must be a very compelling reason so it stacks up against these other intergenerational plans we’ve had for our young people”.
Jade also sees the data centre sector as competing for skills against other industries:
“The sector is competing with lots of future industries, like advanced manufacturing, which is playing a huge role in Western Sydney, like the space sector, [and] the renewable sector, so there’s a lot of competition for the workforce in particularly Western Sydney, but also Western Melbourne through other industries, and they’re using networking strategies to try and capture attention. And I think the data centre sector needs to do more of that kind of work. Obviously, there are TAFE courses, traineeships existing, [and] there are tertiary education opportunities, but you’ve got to get them in the front door to be able to take those opportunities out”.
Yet the value of technology has already been proven in enabling an age-old ceremony to take place:
“Speaking personally. I think technology allowed our clan group to connect all back together. So it was the first time our mob had met on-Country for more than 100 years, and so we were able to use technology to find each other and to connect and to communicate about the project, and then ultimately bring our people back on-Country for our first smoking in over 100 years”.
She is therefore positive about the benefits that technology can bring to First Nations communities with some caveats as to the risks to intellectual property and sovereignty that it might bring:
“Yes, we can make [technology] visible and operable through our cultural lens, and it’s a great advantage to our cultures, but we also are very wary of indigenous cultural intellectual property, moral rights, digital sovereignty, those kind of issues are really quite critical to our people at the moment, yes, and understanding, I think the biggest thing is understanding for our mobs like to get involved in the technology sector. We don’t have to be technologists to start with. We come with our cultural authority, and that’s enough just to get involved”.
The Convention
Her hopes for CDC Sydney on September 12th are based very much around engagement with data centres particularly in terms of opening up pathways into the industry: “I feel that this conference is a really great start to looking at mapping pathways for our people, and looking at what it might look like if we were able, as First Peoples to contribute to the design of the career pathways into data centres in a way that allowed us to be supported by the rest of our community to pursue those career options”.
As part of this, she is looking for the young people who will attend with her to be introduced to the sector, and see that the industry is “not all humming server racks” and to meet people that are actually in the industry. She is hoping also to talk about the process that actually is required, particularly in New South Wales, to engage with her people. This is no longer a “nice to have”; it’s now a requirement now. She wants to reassure people this isn’t a scary process to go through, and that the First Nations community are very invested in doing this the right way.
“We just want to meet other people too. I mean, as a First Nations woman, I don’t see a lot of my kind of people in this sector yet, and I want to look for more pathways for our community to be a part of it”.