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I am honored to be here with you today

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my presentation will focus on the need

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for language

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digitization and why accelerating

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implementations is vital to indigenous

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communities we take language technology

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for granted as it is part of our

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everyday life and we don't realize the

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vast effort required in digitizing an

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indigenous language with a unique

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script what exactly is involved in

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digitizing a

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language I would like to share how

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translation Commons created the language

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digitization initiative to help

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communities who want the benefits of

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language

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digitization there are many components

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to this initiative including the

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enabling of indigenous communities to

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pursue and manage the digitization

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process

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themselves as a volunteer community of

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language techn ologists we came together

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with a vision to enable all languages

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access to the internet and its benefits

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by creating free resources tools and

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training for indigenous

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communities our Advisory Board is a team

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of language technology experts who have

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worked with indigenous communities in

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many different areas of the world

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throughout their careers our team

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consists of computer engineers linguists

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termin technology experts keyboard

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creators Unicode Specialists and

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language professionals all of whom come

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together because of a passion for

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supporting linguistic diversity and the

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indigenous languages of the

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world here are some basic steps that

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indigenous languages will have to do in

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order to reach the level of automation

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of the main digital

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languages this is a complex and lengthy

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process involving multiple organiz

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ganizations and people first they need

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to enable their script online and to

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create enough content to be able to

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leverage existing language Technologies

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by applying to Unicode creating fonts

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and keyboards and Gathering basic data

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sets by using these Technologies they

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also increase the digital content which

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improves their digital experience and

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accuracy of the

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applications to be precise all the big

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and small small tech companies can only

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add a language and script on their

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applications once all of these initial

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steps are completed and they pull data

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from

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Unicode in this workflow we have

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captured the dependencies and

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complexities of language

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digitization the line is straight only

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for purposes of illustration in

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capturing the distinct efforts needed

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for each

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discipline each language in the world

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has a different digital footprint even

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some of the top 100 languages are not

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fully represented in the entire language

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technology workflow shown here it is a

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complex and multi-stakeholder journey

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for any language to be fully developed

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digitally we need font designs and input

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methods so thousands of endangered

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languages can start this journey we need

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educational material to increase the

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digital content we need data sets so

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most languages can have functional

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automation support in applications and

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we need properly trained linguists so

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knowledge will be shared and cultural

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Treasures Will

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Survive multi-stakeholder Partnerships

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are very important and particularly

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partnering with language professional

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experts our expertise will help build

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the language technology tools which in

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turn will facilitate the adoption of the

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new Languages by the tech industry who

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will Implement them in their

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applications and

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products I would like to demonstrate how

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we translated the iil and idil partner

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requirements into Global scalable

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projects with actionable

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deliverables these projects can be

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grouped in four broad categories events

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we have created in person and online

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free resources designed to help

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indigenous communities and members tools

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we created such as keyboards and finally

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our expert consultation and guidance

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through the digitization

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process during 2019 we created over 35

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iil events in universities around the

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world it seems like hard work but we

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created a scalable framework to

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accomplish this first we brought

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together a team of six interns who

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gathered information on language

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departments in universities around the

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world then we created guidelines of what

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and how each Professor could create

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different events to promote and create

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Awareness on local indigenous

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languages next we created lists of

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resources that the professors and

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students could use during their

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events we added examples of different

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types of events and we provided support

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by our centralized volunteer

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team we reached out to 650 universities

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of which 60 professors created events

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which we uploaded on the UNESCO iil

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website following the success of the

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2019 event creation campaign UNESCO

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asked us to keep the professor Community

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engaged until the onset of ID in

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2022 during monthly meetings we shared

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knowledge and projects created ating

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many video resources all available on

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the translation Commons YouTube

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channel the community of practice

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evolved into a very active steering

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committee for online events organized

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jointly by idil and translation

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comment we take the opportunity to

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celebrate various International days and

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during each event we draw attention to

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the issues faced by indigenous

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communities that are relevant to the

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subject of the international day I would

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like to invite you to join us on any of

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the upcoming events and share your

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work in breaking down the language

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digitization process we're able to

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create resources for each step these

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resources vary from documents video

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presentations by experts training

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workshops and educational material we

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are also creating templates and tools

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such as keyboards and reposit

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technology we created the document zero

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to digital capturing information never

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documented before on how when language

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gets digitized this is the first of many

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guidelines helping communities navigate

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step by step the basic elements of

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digitizing their

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languages our expert advisers and

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volunteers continue to create new

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guidelines to cover all aspects of langu

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language technology for the benefit of

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indigenous

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communities we offer keyboard creation

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to communities that don't have one this

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service is volunteer based and free the

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keyboard creation project is a

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collaboration with each Community

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ensuring that the design reflects the

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language and culture our keyboard

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experts from industry and Academia guide

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the community members in collecting

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language requirements

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and provide training on keyboard

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implementation the resulting keyboards

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are open source and publicly available

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under creative

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license the team has worked and created

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multiple keyboards for communities

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around the world here are some of them

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these keyboards are virtual not physical

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on desktop computers they replace the

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characters generated by the physical

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keyboard with the desired

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characters on mobile devices the

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onscreen keyboard is

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replaced we assisted the sunu war

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language community in creating a Unicode

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proposal for their script encoding which

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has been approved we prototype their

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keyboard and now we're working together

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to create Unicode fonts and do a final

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push to get the big computer companies

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and platforms to include the sunow war

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script on the company's defaults list of

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scripts offered to their

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customers I hope I have shared with you

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the urgency to accelerate

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implementations and the need for

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multistakeholder Partnerships between

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indigenous communities national

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government agencies industry Academia

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and

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nonprofits we are always available to

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help and share please feel free to

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contact us thank you