Natives to Know: Michael Running Wolf

Michael Running Wolf was an unlikely technologist. A virtual and augmented reality expert with a Masters in Computer Science, Michael hails from a rural Cheyenne village in Montana called Birney that had only intermittent access to running water and electricity.

Michael’s mother worked for IBM and taught him math; his father was an artist who taught him to hunt; and his grandparents, who helped raise him, spoke only in their native language of Cheyenne.

After working for the top names in tech including Amazon, IBM, AT&T, Michael began teaching at Northeastern University. Today, Michael is a sought after speaker and educator on issues of data sovereignty and idigenous language revitalization. He is the founder of Indigenous AI, where he leads a working group developing new approaches to building the next generation of A.I. systems.

Recently, Michael returned from Spearfish, South Dakota where he spent several weeks working with Native American youth to teach them coding and AI skills. The Lakota AI Code Camp — a collaboration between Natives in Tech and Indigenous AI — culminated in the group of high school students demonstrating their final project, a custom language learning app powered by AI.

Learn more about Michael’s work at Indigenous AI!