‘Indigineers’ marry tech with cultural values
Tasked with writing a report to justify the economic case for burning the gas byproduct from oil wells instead of capturing it and building infrastructure to get it to market, “indigineer” Deanna Burgart went a step further and showed the company how it could save even more money by using the gas to generate energy to power the pump jacks right at the wells.
She used her technical knowledge to solve an engineering problem in a way that satisfied her need to minimize waste when taking from the earth.
Burgart — who grew up in Calgary and is a member of Fond du Lac Denesuline First Nation in Saskatchewan — and Pamela Beaudin, a Metis with roots in Ile à la Cross, are engineers who are launching a Calgary-based company to occupy the space between aboriginal engagement and engineering.
“We felt we belonged to both,” Burgart said Wednesday at the World Indigenous Business Forum in Saskatoon, after announcing the launch of Indigenous Engineering Inclusion Inc., a company she and Beaudin founded.
“We wanted to create a space where we could be our whole selves all the time,” she said.
“We could be indigenous, we could be women, we could be engineers and we could bring that to work and bridge those gaps. Our indigenous perspective of respect for mother earth, culture, balance is part of who we are. We want to
We could be indigenous, we could be women, we could be engineers and we could bring that to work and bridge those gaps. DEANNA BURGART Our indigenous perspective of respect for mother earth, culture, balance is part of who we are. We want to help blend that.
help blend that.”
The new company will offer consulting to firms that understand the need to build relationships with indigenous communities in the lands where they want to do business.
They’ll promote diverse workforces to widen the perspectives of problem solvers, something Burgart began doing years ago when she first started mentoring girls interested in science and technology.
A workforce with diverse voices breeds innovation, she said.
Her passion is empowering youth and getting them into industry, and connecting industry to communities. That will sometimes mean changing industry’s belief that it just needs to go to communities and give them information when what’s needed is an exchange of information and a willingness to learn from communities’ understanding of their own territories, she said.
Companies that want to work on indigenous lands need to build relationships long before they fulfil their duty to consult on planned projects, Burgart said.
She recalled an elder telling her the land is like family to the indigenous people who have always lived there.
“If you wanted to marry my daughter, would you come and talk to me the day of the wedding?’’ he asked.