November 5-8, 2018, Native Nations Institute Associate Director Stephanie Carroll Rainie (Ahtna Athabascan) and NNI Doctoral Scholar Desi Rodriguez-Lonebear (Northern Cheyenne) attended International Data Week International Data Week (IDW) in Gaborone, Botswana. Rainie, a Co-Chair for the Research Data Alliance's (RDA)'s International Indigenous Data Sovereignty Interest Group, lead the following IDW events:

• Panel Chair, "Indigenous Data Sovereignty: Science, Research, and the Governance of Indigenous Data" at the Scientific Data Conference, IDW
• Panel Presentation with Maggie Walter (Palawa, University of Tasmania, Australia), "An Introduction to Indigenous Data Sovereignty and its Implications for the Governance of Indigenous Data," presented at the "Indigenous Data Sovereignty: Science, Research, and the Governance of Indigenous Data" panel at the Scientific Data Conference, IDW
• Chair, "Workshop to Generate Research Data Alliance Recommendations for Indigenous Data Governance" RDA
• Chair, International Indigenous Data Sovereignty Interest Group Session "Indigenous Data Sovereignty: Rurality, Developing Countries, and Invisibility," roundtable at RDA

Rainie has been a leader in Indigenous data sovereignty since 2016 when she co-founded the US Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network (USIDSN) with Rodriguez-Lonebear and the International Indigenous Data Sovereignty Interest Group at the RDA. Native Nations Institute was honored to join in the conference and saw three critical opportunities:

1. Convening to continue to build relationships among international networks;
2. the expansion of networks and ideas to bring Indigenous data sovereignty to new countries; and
3. to develop principles for Indigenous data governance, an international working group of RDA.

Rainie says, "Botswana, which shares a geography with seven tribes, is building open science and data science capability and capacity. At NNI, we have a vested interest in supporting their growth and helping to generate connections across hemispheres. It was really exciting to be here, exchange ideas, and learn what Indigenous data sovereignty means in an African context."

International Data Week consisted of SciDataCon and the 12th Plenary Meeting of the Research Data Alliance. The events were hosted by Botswana Open Data and Open Science Forum and co-organized by the International Science Council (ISC) World Data System, the ISC Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA) and the Research Data Alliance (RDA). The theme for this year's gathering was "The Digital Frontiers of Global Science."

Images featuring: Ray Lovett, Australian National University; Mark Parsons, Rensselaer; Jarita Holbrook, University of Western Cape; Oscar Figueroa, COLPOS; Rodrigo Sara, CGIAR/Biodiversity International; Jan Chapman, Australian National University; Maui Hudson, University of Waikato; Jen Walker, Laurentian University; Robyn Rowe, Laurentian University; Desi Rodriguez-Lonebear, University of Arizona & University of Waikato; Simeon Materechera, North West University

Image credits: Robyn Rowe, Jen Walker, Maui Hudson