Dec 1, 2022
Native American inventor Danielle Boyer combines tradition and innovation through robotics
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: education, robotics/AI
Danielle Boyer knew she was interested in robotics from a young age. But with limited learning resources — a problem many Native American students face — Boyer, who is Ojibwe, said she had to take things into her own hands.
She taught herself through watching YouTube videos, flipping through old electrical engineering books, examining maker kits on Amazon, and then “reverse engineering” everything.
Now, as the founder of the nonprofit The STEAM Connection, Boyer, 22, is on a mission to promote technical and cultural educational opportunities among Native American youth like herself — sometimes combining both in the form of robots that teach Indigenous languages, as they face risks of dying out.