Heritage Lab
Indigenous-led language technology

Language tools
for everywhere.

Inuktitut and Anicinabemowin, built with communities.

Heritage Lab

Who we are

The non-profit

Heritage Lab

A Heritage Lab project

Ai! Inuktitut

Partner organization

Minwashin Β· Ojitodan

Ai!
The voice project

Digital voices

6digital voices
35,000sentences recorded
Joey PartridgeAdamie PhilieSiasie IlisitukPaulusie UqittuqRoxanne KristensenLauri Mulucto
A recording session with a child
A voice actor recording in a booth
A recording session around a table
Ai!
In classrooms

Read-Along

60–70uses a day since launch
Children watching a presentation A student reading a Read-Along book on a classroom screen
Ai!
Read-Along Β· six voices, one book
ᐅ
Thomassie Mangiok, revised by Passa Mangiuk
Ai!
Read-Along
ᔫᓯᐱ α“‚α’«α”ͺα–… αŠα–•α’α“‡α“±α‘¦α‘Žα‘Žα‘α‘¦
Joseph Naukkaruaq, Inuit Northern Games athlete
Ai!
Read-Along
ᐸᐃᖕᖑᐹᓕ αŠα•α••α‘•α•α‘α–…
Little Airplane Β· with Thomassie Mangiok and Nancy Ittuk
Ai!
Search Β· hear

Dictionary

Search in English or French. Hear it in a community voice.

Ai!
Play Β· made with students

Ice Float Words

Drawings by Grade 4 students at Asimauttaq School.

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activities.heritagelab.ca

Monthly games

15,000words found by players in the past few months
Children playing a word game on a kiosk A quiz game A word-search game A game kiosk A word-matching game An illustrated kiosk at an event
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Grammar Β· in pilot

Noun & verb builders

Build a word piece by piece, then hear it spoken.

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Everyday tools

Write Β· scan Β· translate

Script Converter

Syllabics ⇄ roman, instantly.

Document Scanner

Photos and scans become text.

Translate Β· beta

Built with the Inuktitut Language Team.

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In development

An Inuktitut learning game

Made by 15 artists. Characters led by creative director Iima Arngak.

Ayaguta
Character concept: Qila
Character concept: Timuti
Character concept
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Grammar Β· exercise types

Learn by doing

Minwashin
Minwashin Β· Ojitodan

Nine Anicinabe communities

First brainstorming session for their language project, Ojitodan.

Group photo from the first Ojitodan brainstorming session
Participants working with word cards
Minwashin
Minwashin Β· Anicinabemowin

Co-developing Ojitodan’s Interactive Dictionary

Heritage Lab

Where our data are kept

01Recorded in the community
β†’
02Stored in community
β†’
03Used on community terms

Not in big tech data centres.

Heritage Lab

Our own infrastructure

Nunavik runs the tools portable, shoebox-sized Kahnawake stores the data Indigenous data centre
Heritage Lab

Our environmental footprint

A full year of our AI work uses about as much energy as:

30 minof driving a car
1 bulbleft on for a year
Compared withMillions of gallonsof water a year for one large data centre
Heritage Lab
Current worries about AI

What's happening now

AnthropicApproaching universities for Indigenous data to train its AI models
StarlinkFree kits with questionable data practices, while building its own AI models
FacebookFake AI accounts asking about community history and knowledge
AmazonInuktitut books of questionable origin sold online
Heritage Lab

Seen this year

A post by an AI account in a community Facebook group

An AI account in a community Facebook group

Inuktitut books of questionable origin listed on Amazon

Inuktitut books of questionable origin on Amazon

Job creation Β· Ai! Inuktitut
3

Local positions filled in 2025

More opening at Heritage Lab

β€œI went from using the technology to building it.”Shaun Annanack

Job creation Β· Minwashin
3

Youth hired

To work on Ojitodan

Heritage Lab

ᓇᑯᕐᒦᒃ

Nakurmiik Β· Thank you