IEM News Release

Keolu Fox Awarded GEMSTONES Award for Leadership in Sustainable AI and Indigenous Data Sovereignty

05/08/2025

May 8, 2025 - Keolu Fox, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, has recently been awarded the GEMSTONES award for his innovative project, “Sovereign AI and Sustainable Computation for Indigenous Communities”. The project exemplifies cutting-edge research at the intersection of artificial intelligence and environmental sustainability. The $10,000 grant provides support to further develop his work.

The project addresses two critical challenges: the environmental burden of electronic waste and the lack of technology in Indigenous communities. By repurposing decommissioned graphics processing units (GPUs) into renewable-powered micro-data centers, Dr. Fox's team is building localized computational infrastructure that supports artificial intelligence while minimizing environmental impact. This effort includes the development of energy-efficient language models for language preservation, healthcare, and education. This is a crucial step towards promoting Indigenous data sovereignty, a generally underrepresented target audience.

Dr. Fox's commitment to sustainable technology, innovation, and community-driven science has earned him numerous recognitions, including being named a TED Fellow National Geographic Emerging Explorer, and science lead with the FootPrint Coalition. His broader contributions to genomics, Indigenous data sovereignty, and artificial intelligence have set a high standard for STEM leadership.

Dr. Fox's work is a testament to the importance of Indigenous perspectives in shaping the future of technology and sustainability. His research has the potential to make a significant impact in Indigenous communities, and his dedication to promoting sustainable technology and innovation is an inspiration to his peers. We are proud to support Dr. Fox's work and congratulate him on this accomplishment.

The GEMSTONES Award is intended to provide funding support for faculty co-investigators from engineering, health, or social sciences to mentor and supervise teams of undergraduate or graduate students in developing projects aiming to generate solutions to community-defined needs or planning new research projects that better address community-identified needs. We understand that community-based participatory research requires considerable time and effort to engage the community and define relevant research questions or publishable research solutions.

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