ROUND TABLE 15 | DAY 2 | 9:30am-10:30am | BALLROOM J

| JOSEPH YRCHETA (Pūrepecha – Mexican Indigenous), Native BioData Consortium

The birth of the Big Data Era may have been as early as the 1990s, crediting American computer scientist John R Mashey, considered the ‘father of big data’, for making it popular. Others believe it was a term coined in 2005 by Roger Mougalas and the O’Reilly Media group. The American Indian and Alaska Native rights movement could be seen as entering as early as 1975 with the passing of Self Determination legislative acts but most assuredly rose to prominence during the early days of genome mapping with the HGDP in 1991 and the Havasupai vs Arizona Board of regents fight in 2004. Since then there has been many IDSov warriors created in the Ivory Tower of Academia (Native and allied peoples). However, as the learning curve is steep for grassroots communities and their elected leadership to make the switch from activism around precious metals and fossil fuels to the data that breadcrumbs to those resources and future resources (such as digital sequence information), this new generation of Indigenous Academic Activists are bumping hard against their home communities. Native BioData Consortium is a 501 C 3 biological and data repository that provides safe harbor for many peoples, Indigenous and marginalized alike. They’ve grown rapidly since 2008 on National and International stages but locally, they are not wholly accepted by the community. This roundtable session will cover some of the background and history as to why that has led to the current outcome of New Guard vs Old Guard dynamics. It’s critically important to surmount these challenges as the rapidity of Data Hoovering (vacuum) is an existential threat to Tribal Nations.