ISLP and volunteers from Winston & Strawn are drafting two model contracts for IndigiGenius, a social enterprise established to preserve and protect the cultural heritage of Indigenous communities, while ensuring inclusion of their heritage and language in artificial intelligence applications. The model contracts are being developed to support Indigenous communities in the US and Canada and will help ensure that these communities are able to maintain control of their heritage and consent to any proposed use, disrupting the narrative of exploitation. The contracts will also enable IndigiGenius and its partners to pursue important research that respects Indigenous customs and ways of knowing. While the client’s pilot projects target Indigenous communities in North America, ISLP and IndigiGenius hope to extend the project’s learnings to inform future cooperation with Indigenous communities in other countries.
