Robotics inventor advocating for tech for good and building SkoBots for language. Indigenous (Anishinaabe - Enrolled SSM). Founder @steamconnection
MI & SoCal
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- Followers 6,178
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In all the news of the fires in Southern California, I am hardly seeing anyone speak up about the Indigenous communities impacted. Prayers for Chumash & Gabrieleno Kizh homelands. Returning lands to Indigenous hands is needed now more than ever. Stay safe
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My heart cries for the land. Possible largest oil spill in Wisconsin history is ongoing. 69k+ gallons so far. Enbridge Line 6 Pipeline. Get pipelines off Indigenous lands
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I remember in highschool non-Indigenous students would berate me for being loudly anti-pipeline and would call me stupid and that I wanted to hurt the economy. No, I just wanted not to destroy the land. This week, over 69k gallons of oil spilled in Wisconsin bc of Line 6
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Saw a young Indigenous person getting bullied on TikTok because they got scurvy for living in a food desert. Over a quarter of Indigenous peoples in the U.S. face food insecurity. They are Anishinaabe
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Please support an Indigenous youth who lost her home in the Palisades fire. Evan, an Chihene Apache UCLA senior, tragically lost everything-her home, belongings, beadwork, and job. She now faces the challenge of finding housing, replacing essentials, and continuing her education
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While Arizona is working to create more data centers to power AI and improve power infrastructure, they denied Navajo Nation support while many live without power
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An Indigenous perspective on AI and the harm it can cause on our communities (a thread, made by me)
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Me rn: i just accomplished something I never thought I would. I pitched at Stanford this weekend and secured funding for my STEM educational app for Indigenous girls
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the inventor vs the invention. a language revitalization robot that speaks my Indigenous language Anishinaabemowin
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On this trans day of visibility let us be reminded that trans people have existed since before colonization and are still here. Being trans isn’t a new concept, and you’re on Indigenous land
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The original Star Wars: A New Hope is now premiering as a re-release dubbed in my endangered Indigenous language, Anishinaabemowin at select theaters! It aims to spark interest in new learners. This project made my family cry when we learned about it! It’s so exciting
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achieved a big dream of mine by displaying Anishinaabe woodland floral light sculptures at Electric Forest that I built!
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just my grandma and I with the SkoBot, a language revitalization robot that speaks our language Anishinaabemowin & uses her voice!
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It’s Native American Heritage Month! Go follow a new Native account this month, read a book by a Native author, learn whose land you occupy, and support us every day not just this month!
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As Indigenous people, we often have very little control of how our own data is used. Did you know that The Lakota Language Consortium, a non-profit led by a white man, promised the Lakota to preserve their language and tried to sell it back to them?
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It’s crazy that ChatGPT is capable of inventing new words that don’t exist in my endangered Indigenous language Anishinaabemowin. Indigenous languages must be handled with accuracy and care, and not be used to train tools like this from data scraping on the web
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happy Native American heritage month. I don’t call myself a Native American. I’m Anishinaabe
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i never thought id be able to wear a language revitalization robot that i designed when i was 20. so proud of how far ive come
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While Arizona is working to create more data centers to power Al and improve power infrastructure, they denied Navajo Nation support while many live without power
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my Anishinaabe futurisms light sculptures in Salmo, BC. they’re 8ft tall and built alongside my students to tell our story through art and technology <3
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Peoples anti-Indigenous views are showing. Natives here have traditional fire controlled burning methods that protect CA from wildfires getting out of control. Landback means protecting the land and everyone on it, never destroying it. Prayers for all
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me teaching vs a drawing my student did of me (I was teaching about language revitalization robots for Indigenous languages!)
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Recently, non-Navajo people made an Al generated art series about a Diné girl who loves STEM. This really disappoints me because there are so many talented Diné artists to hire but they instead chose to use Al. Also, Diné stories should be told by Diné
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I was stalked with drones as a teen and almost quit my passion for robotics. In highschool, I joined a robotics team but was harassed & assaulted for being a girl. I was told to quit, was followed, and stalked. They even sent drones to my house to spy on me
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Recently, non-Navajo people made an AI generated art series about a Diné girl who loves STEM. This really disappoints me because there are so many talented Diné artists to hire but they instead chose to use AI. Also, Diné stories should be told by Diné. (1/3)
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Did you know there are Indigenous comic cons? Last year I went to my first one, and people said they wish they’d known about it! Coming this October, áYA Con in Denver, CO is open for all and has everything from a fashion show, to classes, Native nerd culture, artists, & more!
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as a kid I would obsess over Scholastic magazines. It fueled the nerd I am today. now, I achieved my childhood dream and was featured by Scholastic for my Indigenous language revitalization robots!
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I’m Anishinaabe, and I founded a charity that brings free technology education focused in robotics to Indigenous youths like me. Here’s why STEM for us by us matters
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It’s baffling that non Indigenous people think they know what is best for the preservation of Indigenous languages. Even if you disagree with our methods, we have a right to choose what to do with our own languages. And we probably (definitely) have more context than you
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I achieved a big dream of mine and got to have my language revitalization robots SkoBots in the Rediscovering Native America show by the Red Road Project to honor the present and future of Indigenous communities
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the illustration vs the final product. 8ft tall Indigenous (Anishinaabe) futurisms light sculptures and my first time making art
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Language preservation of Indigenous languages is crucial. These robots (called SkoBots) go to youth for free and supplement community language learning (never replaces it)
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Whenever I post abt things I’m excited abt I get replies like this. Or I wish the French had finished you all off. Or I hope you go missing. Or you’re a drunk! People target Natives with racist comments constantly and it’s repulsive
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Yeah that’s not what I said, nice try tho. If we listened to the Indigenous peoples here and allowed them to have their traditional fire burning methods that PREVENTED wildfires, this would have never happened. Landback to Indigenous peoples to protect the land and everyone on it
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I’ve been designing robots and running my charity since I was 18. I’m 23 now. My entire adult life. I build robots to serve my community and to teach STEM and language
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To all the girls out there who are struggling in robotics and coding, you are meant to be doing what you love. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise 🤖🤖
ALT In a Zoom message at the Intrepid Museums teen panel: "Thank you for sharing your story. I have an interest in robotics and coding and I had a similar experience to you where people would tell me that it isn't for girls or they would underestimate me. So hearing your story just motivates me to push forward. Thank you again." said by an anonymous student.
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The organization compiled materials using community resources, including Elder recordings. These materials were copyrighted without Tribal consent and then attempted to be sold back to them (NBC News). This happens all the time to our communities
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I just wanted to learn about robots, but was so afraid to pursue my passion. Now, I run a robotics charity for youth like me so that no other kid will have to experience what I did
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4 years ago today I founded @steamconnection and have since then sent out 8k+ free robots to youth. We've reached 600k+ kids with cultural robots, language resources, and STEM and I can't wait for more. Thank you everyone for your love and support
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some of my babies that I made. they are SkoBots that speak my endangered Indigenous language Anishinaabemowin
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People are using AI to generate images of Indigenous people and it’s dangerous. It can take away from our authentic voices & contribute to misinformation about our communities (a thread)
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I see a lot of anti-trans discourse on X, and it makes me sad. In my Anishinaabe culture, we have many different genders. Anti-trans mentality is not the default! Everyone deserves to be affirmed, loved, and cared for
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Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day! Here are 6 Indigenous women and femmes in STEM you should know about, in no particular order that I admire and look up to! @charitieropati @nativepremed @BrookMThompson
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My latest SkoBot prototype for Indigenous language learning in my language Anishinaabemowin & a thread about it
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If you’re able, please consider supporting her and her family in this difficult time. I know their family personally
Zelle (310) 913-1341
Venmo: Evan-Vasquez-G (no profile pic) - https:// venmo.com/u/Evan-Vasquez-G
(Note her Venmo has been spoofed so please be careful)
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did an interview today about my robots with my absolute favorite microcontrollers company. such a big moment for me & I can’t wait to share more
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just me and my robot army (they’re language revitalization robots for Indigenous languages)
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the most precious SkoBot I’ve ever made. a language revitalization robot that speaks Anishinaabemowin
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making my language revitalization robots SkoBots for the Rediscovering Native America exhibition at the Bedford Art Gallery
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it was such an honor keynoting @ohsummit, the world’s first comprehensive conference on open hardware. I got to share about language revitalization robots and the importance of digital literacy skills
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Feeling so incredibly thankful to have gotten to speak at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, France to celebrate the decade of Indigenous languages. I shared about my language robots
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Wrong. Especially in that region. Casinos also don’t cause nearly as much environmental harm as pipelines…
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my mom was the one who taught me how to use power tools, how to reuse things, and how to put community first. she's the reason why I can invent robots
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making SkoBots (Indigenous language revitalization robots) before I leave for the Grace Hopper Celebration, the largest tech conference for women & non binary people. hope I see you there <3
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Lecturing today for the University of Arizona and their Indigenous Research and Ethics class. My heart is full, what a beautiful class
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packing more free robots for Native youth! Inspired by when my little sister wanted to learn about robots growing up and we couldn’t afford it. now I make thousands of robots for free
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There’s a pretty well known dude in the robotics influencing field that is a major creep. Telling me that I look like I’ve never had an earth shattering orgasm before, trying to hurt my reputation because I didn’t reply to him, and taking some of my ideas
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what im thinking about today: using augmented reality to teach kids my indigenous language virtually with my robot sidekick, SkoBot (a real life robot)
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Why would I ever listen to news from a UK news source about “North American” Indigenous issues. We are from this land
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A sneak peek of my Anishinaabe tech futurisms art piece that’s headed to Michigan, where I am from! <3
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Still working on the Anishinaabe futurisms tech installation. Today is all about building crates, fixing mistakes, designing circuits, and making stuff happen
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Did you know that last fall, OpenAI released Whisper, a speech recognition model trained on audio taken from the web. It speaks the Māori language and was built without their consent or input... and is inaccurate. Indigenous language resources should be made by Indigenous people!
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What’s next in 2025? Post Next 50! I have been recognized by @washingtonpost as part of the first-ever Post Next 50, a list of people whose work will shape our society for my work in technology and language revitalization robotics. Miigwech (thank you)!
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from this tiny storage unit, i build robots almost everyday to send to kids for free to teach them tech skills. my favorite robot of mine is the SkoBot, a language revitalization robot for Indigenous languages. I spend hours here a day making robots to go to schools
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