Lisa Sarago on remote AI kiosks and Indigenous exclusion in tech

Welcome back to Neural Notes, where I look at some of the most interesting AI stories of the week. In this edition: Bundaburra Yidinji and Western Yalanji woman Lisa Sarago is the CEO of the Land on Heart Foundation, Director of AI Indigenous Innovations, and Founder of Tiddas in Tech. She talks about AI’s potential for remote Indigenous communities and the overt exclusion of Indigenous voices in the Australian tech sector.

Land on Heart was launched in March 2023, and is dedicated to promoting Indigenous voices in tech innovation while creating pathways for cultural understanding and practical solutions for communities across Australia. The foundation’s mission is rooted in respect and connection to the Country.

“An Acknowledgement of Country and Welcome to Country is all about explaining that Country and that Land is very much part of our soul, part of our spirit. It’s on our heart. And so that’s how we came up with Land on Heart,” Sarago said to SmartCompany.

This ethos drives a suite of tools and programs designed to enhance workplace culture, promote reconciliation and foster inclusion.

From crafting Reconciliation Action Plans to delivering executive coaching, the program integrates cultural strategies with business goals to create more supportive and inclusive workplace environments.

Partnering with tech giants to foster inclusion

Land on Heart also partners with leading tech companies to integrate cultural respect into everyday workplace tools. The Acknowledgement of Country Teams app, developed in collaboration with Microsoft Australia, makes it easy for organisations to start meetings with an Acknowledgement of Country.

Beyond its focus on organisational tools, Land on Heart aims to bridge the digital divide and create economic opportunities for Indigenous communities.

“The big thing for us is we’ve got this goal of establishing up to 15 Indigenous tech schools hubs in remote and rural Australia,” Sarago said.

“Tech gives us a very unique opportunity where we’re able to take jobs to mob on country so they don’t have to move,” Sarago said.

While Sarago acknowledged how competitive the tech industry is globally, she pointed to a distinct point of difference and advantage Australia has.

“No one else has the world’s oldest living culture. And if we were able to use that, infuse that into tech – the amount of innovative tools that we could come up with would be amazing,” Sarago said.

The importance of ethical data collection and use

Data is also an important piece of this reality in Australia. In order to avoid further bias being directly baked into large language models (LLMs) and AI, more diverse datasets are needed, and for the people building this technology to not all look the same.

This is all the more pertinent when it comes to the collection and use of Indigenous datasets. Sarago shared a vision of building a network of Indigenous data analysts and AI developers.

“One of my passions pieces is building an army of data analysts that are Indigenous across Australia,” Sarago said.

Sarago pointed to the 2023 Voice to Parliament referendum as a key example of why this is needed.

“We saw last year on the 14th of October that data was used against us. It wasn’t collected by us. It definitely wasn’t interpreted by us,” Sarago said.

“So if you have Indigenous people that own their own data, that were out collecting the data in the right way, in the more culturally appropriate way, and then interpreting it in the right way, we would have a very different story around our people.”

Bridging the digital divide with AI kiosks

A key focus of Land on Heart is deploying AI-enabled kiosks across rural and remote communities as part of a three-year contract from the Department of Social Services (DSS) under its digital connectivity project. It has been awarded $1.5 million in funding over three years for the project.

These kiosks are designed as mobile digital access points that provide a range of tailored resources, from health information to tools for capturing and preserving cultural stories.

The kiosks will be customisable, ensuring they meet the needs of each community.

“We’re not just plonking kiosks in there and walking away. We work with the community to identify what they actually would like to do as a community project,” Sarago said.

She shared how the kiosks will feature the ability for users to upload to the portal, with Indigenous data sovereignty at the forefront.

No one outside of the community will be able to access this. The kiosks will also have multilingual capabilities, leveraging AI to translate content into local languages.

“The other really important thing that’s close to my heart is our language. Not just preserving it, but also being able to share it and how do we use AI to help,” Sarago said.

“Some of these mobs that we’re going out to yarn to and set up the kiosk for may not be literate in English. They might have three different languages.

“The other part of the contract is making sure that whatever we put on there suits their learning needs. How do we use AI to translate content that we have on this, and they’re still accessing the information, but in the best possible way?”

Sarago described how the kiosks will address the practical realities of connectivity in remote regions.

“Our kiosks are also able to be utilised offline, so if they lose connectivity, they’re still able to access that information on the kiosk.”

This feature is vital in areas where infrastructure gaps are still significant. In some cases, communities haven’t had mobile connectivity or internet before.

Sarago says the idea is to keep going back into these communities after projects have finished in order to increase these digital skills, thereby attracting other providers who can increase the connectivity and skills even further.

When asked about her dream AI project, Sarago had an immediate answer. “I would have a language model for every single nation that we have that has their own dialect. That would just be amazing,” Sarago said.

“Some of these languages have fewer and fewer speakers, and the risk of losing them is real. Imagine if AI could help communities not just preserve their languages but also teach them to younger generations. That would be a game-changer.”

Education and safety in the digital world

Education around online safety is another critical component for the installation of the kiosks on Country.

“Now they’ve become connected, we need to educate them around digital literacy, but also making sure that mob are aware of all of the things that come with connectivity… cybersecurity, fraud, online shopping, AI,” Sarago said.

Sarago said the organisation wants to ensure that it provides information not just on the dangers of AI, but on how it can be a positive for good.

“Some of this stuff that we’re talking at the moment is with ranger groups on how can we actually use AI to create awesome tools to help them improve how they’re caring for country, for example,” Sarago said.

Lisa also pointed to the broader applications of AI in language accessibility.

“These models could go beyond preservation — they could be integrated into all sorts of technologies, from education tools to cultural projects and even everyday apps. This isn’t just about keeping our languages alive; it’s about ensuring they thrive in modern contexts, where our people can see our culture reflected back to us in the technologies we use.”

Systemic issues in the Australian tech sector

Sarago also addressed the broader systemic issues Indigenous people face when it comes to accessing and having a real positive influence on the tech sector.

She refers to it as being the invisible black woman in the room.

“I sat at a round table around tech a couple of years ago, and all I heard from the so-called leaders in the tech industry was ‘gender, gender, gender, gender’. And then sometimes skilled migrants were thrown in there,” Sarago said.

She said it’s normal for Indigenous voices to go unheard in the Australian tech ecosystem, even in spaces that claim to advocate for diversity.

“I’ve been knocking on doors and having the doors close on me or being told ‘we don’t have the gender stuff right yet we can’t think about Indigenous’,” Sarago said.

“We’ve got non-Indigenous women out there that are put in positions where they’re speaking on behalf of Indigenous people in tech. You can’t speak for me because you don’t have my lived experience,” Sarago said.

“And for us, as Indigenous women we sit at the table with our men. We are a matriarchal society. We do have a say in our community and our families.

“It’s not until we walk outside our community that we’re faced with that discrimination. Not just because we’re Indigenous, but because we’re also women.”

Sarago says that despite there being extremely vocal Indigenous tech experts advocating for the community – particularly women and girls – it consistently falls on deaf ears.

“We’re not asked questions. They’re asking the wrong people – people would never fly out to work in Indigenous communities,” Sarago said.

“The whole self-determination, Indigenous-led ‘for us, by us’ doesn’t happen in the tech sector. The wrong people are getting the microphone way too many times. They’re there for their own purpose, and they’re not advocating for us.”

Never miss a story: sign up to SmartCompany’s free daily newsletter and find our best stories on LinkedIn.