Stitching the Future: Technology as a Sacred Trust

In an era where artificial intelligence promises to archive human culture at the touch of a button, Indigenous communities face a vital question: Who has the right to own, shape and digitize sacred knowledge? 

Long before AI became a headline in education, this question fundamentally reshaped my work as the instructional technology coordinator at Indian Community School. But understanding how to protect our community’s digital future didn’t start in a computer lab; it began in a quiet valley in Wisconsin, with my grandmother’s unfinished quilt and a ribbon skirt workshop that changed everything I knew about knowledge itself.

I grew up in a small rural village tucked into Wisconsin’s Driftless Area, where winding roads disappear between steep bluffs and deep valleys, and every hill seems to reveal another breathtaking view. It was a place shaped not by glaciers, but by time. A landscape as rugged as it was beautiful. 

It was also home to my grandmother — a strong cheesemaker’s wife who was, in some ways, the quintessential grandmother figure. She hosted Sunday family dinners, baked fresh bread, volunteered at the local food pantry and quilted with the other ladies from church twice a week. She also cursed like a sailor and wasn’t stingy with her love or hugs. 

In my teen years, she became my shelter — a quiet refuge from a chaotic home and a reminder that love exists even in the hardest seasons. When I went away to college, she sent me away with a quilt made just for me, a special gift we all only receive once. As an adult, she became the reason we visited the Driftless Area and was the glue that kept our families together. During that time, she showed that love to my children, who adored her. 

After a long stay in a nursing home and years of declining health, my grandmother passed away last year. After her passing, my twin sister and I discovered her last unfinished quilt tucked away in a forgotten storage bin. Her hands hadn’t been able to hold the material or work the sewing machine for a long time, and we thought all the quilts had been claimed. Finding one more, even unfinished, felt like a blessing. 

Around the same time, my twin sister and I both signed up for a staff ribbon skirt class where members of the Indigenous community would teach us not only how to make ribbon skirts, but also share teachings about how to wear them respectfully and as true allies. Carrying pieces of our grandmother’s unfinished quilt with us, we set out to create ribbon skirts in her honor. 

Before that class, I knew very little about ribbon skirts beyond seeing them worn at school celebrations and community events. I quickly learned they are not tied to a single tribe, but are worn by Indigenous women across many Nations, each with their own traditions, teachings and stories. I also learned that a ribbon skirt is much more than a beautiful piece of clothing. It represents identity, resilience, and the enduring strength of Indigenous women. 

Today, communities across North America celebrate Ribbon Skirt Day each January, recognizing not only the skirts themselves, but the right of Indigenous people to wear them with pride after generations of policies that sought to erase their cultures.

What surprised me most was that our class wasn’t really about making skirts. It was about learning the responsibility that comes with them. We learned when it was appropriate to wear a ribbon skirt, what it meant to wear one as an ally, and why those teachings mattered as much as the sewing itself. Anyone can buy a ribbon skirt online, but creating one alongside community members who generously shared their knowledge transformed it into something entirely different. Every stitch became part of a relationship built on trust, respect and a willingness to learn. 

That experience changed the way I thought about knowledge itself. I realized that some things are valuable not because they can be owned, bought, or preserved, but because they carry stories, relationships and responsibilities that extend far beyond any one individual. They belong to the communities that shaped them and to the generations who will inherit them.

The tension between owning knowledge and stewarding it sits at the very heart of my work as the instructional technology coordinator at Indian Community School. If knowledge is built on trust and community relationships, then technology cannot simply be an instrument to extract, scale, or monetize data. That conviction was tested in 2021, well before generative AI became a household conversation, when a company approached our language and culture department with an extraordinary proposal.

They offered innovation. A way to immortalize language and culture through “virtual ancestors” — artificial intelligence trained on the stories, voices, and wisdom of living tribal elders. As the instructional technology coordinator, I was initially excited about what an extraordinary opportunity it would be to place our school at the forefront of modern technology! 

However, the more my colleagues and I analyzed the pitch, the more our excitement gave way to deep alarm. The offer was riddled with deep red flags: vague promises around intellectual property, zero accountability for data privacy and a predatory push to extract sacred community knowledge. But recognizing those red flags was only half the battle. 

Facing a tool this complex also exposed the gaps in my own understanding of artificial intelligence at the time. I realized that properly vetting this proposal and ensuring our school’s technology program moved forward in a good, grounded way required more than just caution. It demanded that I build my own AI literacy so I could stand as an informed guardian for our community’s data.  

That 2021 proposal became the catalyst for a journey that has defined my work ever since. Recognizing gaps in my own understanding, I immersed myself in AI literacy, digital ethics and Indigenous data sovereignty frameworks. As we start the 2026-27 school year, AI is no longer a distant possibility; it is actively shaping how stories are told, how knowledge is created and how data is harvested. 

In response, my role has evolved from simply managing technology infrastructure to helping our school build an ethical digital sanctuary. We began facilitating professional development sessions that empower our teachers to critically evaluate AI tools through a lens of cultural safety and data privacy. In the classroom, we reaffirmed our dedication to active digital stewardship over passive consumption. 

Rather than allowing third-party algorithms to dictate or summarize Native experiences, our students now engage in hands-on digital storytelling, learning how to protect their personal and cultural data while using modern tools to amplify their authentic voices on their own terms.  

The core lesson I learned in that ribbon skirt class remains my guiding principle: technology, like knowledge, is only as valuable as the relationships and trust behind it. For educators, leaders, and communities navigating this fast-shifting landscape, maintaining agency over our stories requires asking hard questions before we ever sign a contract or adopt a tool:

• Who owns the data being used to train this system? In my school, we actively reject software platforms that do not explicitly provide full intellectual property rights to the school.

• Does this tool respect the sovereignty and living culture of the community it serves? I work with stakeholders to ensure that software and platforms do not train on student or staff data, and I prioritize tools with the least environmental impact.

• Are we adopting technology to enhance human relationships, or replace them? We prioritize tools that bring elders, teachers and students together in real-world dialogue, using technology as a bridge for connection rather than a substitute for human presence.

When my sister and I stitched pieces of our grandmother’s unfinished quilt into our ribbon skirts, we weren’t just preserving her memory; we were continuing a relationship rooted in love, honor and continuity. That is the true essence of stewardship. When we approach technological innovation not as a rush to extract the future, but as a solemn duty to protect what was handed down to us, we ensure that modern tools honor where we came from. In the age of AI, our responsibility remains unchanged: to stitch technology into the living fabric of our communities in a good way, ensuring our stories remain whole, authentic and undeniably our own.