Preserving Tradition Via Expertise: An Unforgettable Expertise within the Arctic

In June 2024, two of my passions—Native American tradition and know-how—converged on the high of the world. Together with a small staff from Cisco and IP Consulting, an African American Cisco Accomplice, I journeyed to Utqiaġvik (Barrow) Alaska, to help IỊisaġvik Faculty and the Iñupiaq Alaska Native Tribe.

Woman on Arctic beach standing under whale bone arch.My go to was a bucket record merchandise I didn’t know I had till I used to be there. We weren’t there to vary the Iñupiaq tradition however to assist protect it.

Figuring out and Assembly a Want

Cisco’s Social Justice Motion 8 helps the sustainability of minority-serving schools and universities by offering funding for college students and know-how modernization.

After we arrived at IỊisaġvik Faculty—Alaska’s solely Tribal Faculty situated within the northernmost metropolis within the U.S.—I really understood their challenges. The group is accessible solely by airplane or barge, and on account of its remoteness, protecting know-how present could be daunting.

With Motion 8 as our information, we assessed IỊisaġvik Faculty’s cybersecurity infrastructure and carried out options to satisfy the federal requirements required to protect the establishment’s Title IV funding. As well as, we launched Cisco’s Networking Academy to its curriculum, offering alternatives for college students to earn industry-recognized certifications.

Past Expertise Enhancements

Whereas our work targeted on bettering the faculty’s cybersecurity, perpetuating the Iñupiaq lifestyle was an much more vital facet of the journey.

As a Native American, I perceive the crucial significance of preserving Indigenous cultures from technology to technology. It’s one thing I’m enthusiastic about as I proceed my grandmother’s life’s work as she did on the Intertribal Friendship Home in Oakland, California, and as founder and international lead of Cisco’s Native American Community (NAN), considered one of Cisco’s 30+ Inclusive Communities (our identify for Worker Useful resource Teams). Justina Wilhelm, IỊisaġvik Faculty’s president, shares this dedication, recognizing that cultivating experience in IT and cybersecurity within the Arctic is important to her group, enabling the Iñupiaq tradition to be maintained and strengthened. I feel the contingent from Cisco and IP Consulting helped her to realize this consequence.

New Buddies and Traditions

From the second we arrived and all through our journey, I used to be moved by how welcoming everybody was to us. The Iñupiaq persons are wealthy in tradition and embrace their subsistence traditions, which they fortunately shared with us. Neighborhood is the whole lot to those folks and every evening we shared a meal with a unique household. Since our go to occurred throughout whaling season, we participated in whaling ceremonies, together with the blanket toss, which is how hunters traditionally checked the horizon for whales. I additionally visited the Iñupiat Heritage Middle, the place I discovered how tribe members make conventional clothes, and shared a few of my very own tribe’s clothes customs.

Overhead shot of a group of people gathered around a beige, tarp-like object held off the ground by long ropes, used to toss a person into the air.
The blanket toss was one of many Iñupiaq traditions Alice and the staff skilled throughout their journey.

I additionally had the possibility to attach with the scholars on the school, exhibiting them there’s hope and alternatives for individuals who seem like them. To me, illustration for the following technology is important, and people conversations have been a few of the most significant moments of the journey.

A Private Studying Journey

All through my profession at Cisco, I’ve eagerly embraced alternatives to signify my Indigenous tradition in a number of initiatives that introduced Cisco know-how to Tribal communities. Every expertise was distinctive and impressed me in sudden methods. My go to to Utqiaġvik was no exception, and my journey to this distant city was considered one of my favourite journeys of all time. I gained a lot from experiencing the similarities and variations between my Native tradition and the Iñupiaq folks’s. Their village, from the homes to rez canines to kids taking part in exterior, jogged my memory of the reservation the place I grew up and made me really feel at residence. However I additionally discovered magnificence in our variations and was particularly humbled to take part locally’s whaling ceremonies. From the normal dances to consuming whale 5 alternative ways, it was like nothing I’d ever skilled earlier than.

Woman dressed in colorful, striped traditional Native American skirt, black top, and beaded necklace stands in the center of small group of college students in front of IỊisaġvik College sign.
Alice and IỊisaġvik Faculty college students and administration.

Greater than that, I’m grateful to work at an organization that’s altering the narrative for underrepresented folks. Native People make up lower than one p.c of Cisco’s 80,000+ staff. So, it will be simple to really feel invisible right here. As a substitute, I’m inspired to be my true, genuine, Native American self in the whole lot I do—whether or not that’s in an workplace, at a convention, presiding over a Land Acknowledgement, or supporting our social justice work on the high of the world. I’ve been given a seat on the desk and an incredible alternative—and duty—to signify my group with Cisco’s help.

IỊisaġvik Faculty was the second Tribal Faculty Cisco supported by way of our social justice initiative. I’m full of gratitude for the probabilities I’ve needed to take part alongside my Cisco friends in purpose-led work like this and different Tribal group initiatives, and I look ahead to increasing our impression to extra Indigenous-serving colleges and discovering new issues about myself within the course of.

To study extra about Cisco’s help of IỊisaġvik Faculty, learn Connectivity on the high of the world: Preserving the previous, partnering for the longer term.

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