“Data is Soil”: Playbook
A practical course on Indigenous Data Sovereignty and AI, co-developed by the GainForest Indigenous and Local Data Council.
Thirteen short lessons. The first seven build the framework for Indigenous data sovereignty, local-first technology, and community-governed AI; the last six walk through the Data Council and GainForest stack that put the framework into practice. Each lesson has a reading, an exercise, and a knowledge check.
- Tell when a dataset is being treated as oil, and when it's being treated as soil.
- Draft a boundary statement and a code-of-conduct rule a community could actually hold a vendor to.
- Turn refusal into enforceable deny rules, safe responses, logs, and stop conditions.
- Walk through local-first technology, the Data Council, stablecoin payments, drone mapping, and three real GainForest tools, Bumicerts, Taina, AudioMoth, and apply the framework to each.
13 lessons, in order.
The first seven lessons build the framework. The last six walk through the Data Council and GainForest stack that put the framework into practice. Walk them in order on your first time through.
The framework
7 lessons
0155 minutesSoil over oil
Naming the frame you already use
0210 minutesSovereignty is process
Why 'national' doesn't mean 'sovereign'
0315 minutesBoundaries before the scrape
Five fields that turn consent into a practice
0418 minutesA code of conduct for AI agents
Six pillars a community can write together
0515 minutesThe right to remain unmodeled
Refusal as a complete answer
0614 minutesCARE principles
Collective benefit before open data
0713 minutesLocal-first technology
Small models, held close
The practice
6 lessons
0813 minutesData Council
Turning governance into a standing body
0914 minutesBumicerts on ATProto
Three components of a verifiable claim
1014 minutesTaina
Constitutional AI co-designed with communities
1116 minutesAudioMoth deployment
Tending the data garden, in the field
1214 minutesPaying with stablecoins
When the rail must fit the village
1315 minutesDrone mapping
Low-cost drones, RGB maps, and a river that changes
Everything beyond the lessons.
The handouts you'll bring into the room, the reminders before you teach, and the reading list the lessons draw on. Each lives on its own page so you can bookmark and share them.
- Worksheets
Printable handouts
Boundary worksheet, six-pillar canvas, and the refusal protocol lab, each rendered as a clean printable page.
- For facilitators
Six notes before you hold the room
Practical reminders we tell every new GainForest facilitator before they run the course in a workshop room.
- Read alongside
Reading & resources
Statements, papers, and primary sources the lessons draw on, plus space for further reading as the list grows.