2026 Conference: Great Plains Futures

Danielle Boyer

From Bytes to Bright Futures: Meet the SkoBots

Join Anishinaabe (Sault Tribe) youth robotics inventor Danielle Boyer as she explores how culturally grounded technology can reshape education, empower communities, and revitalize languages. Growing up under the poverty line and witnessing firsthand the barriers to technical education, Danielle created the SkoBots, wearable, personal language-learning robots to teach Anishinaabemowin. Built with affordability, sustainability, and cultural relevance in mind, her robots cost less than $100 to produce and are distributed free to Indigenous youth. Danielle shares how she has reached over one million students globally, disbursed tens of thousands of robots, and built a movement rooted in community, grassroots innovation, and intergenerational knowledge.

Boyer focuses on how emerging technologies can be ethically used to drive Indigenous-led efforts for cultural preservation with an emphasis on language revitalization. In 2019, she founded The STEAM Connection, a youth-led charity that has reached over 1 million youth with free, accessible, and representative technical education. She is known for designing robots called SkoBots that speak her endangered language, Anishinaabemowin. She is a National Geographic Young Explorer, Echoing Green Fellow, two-time MIT Solve Fellow, Washington Post Next Changemaker, and Teen Vogue Indigenous Youth Changemaker. She has spoken at the White House twice and addressed the UNESCO Headquarters on Indigenous languages. Her life was featured in an MIT Solve documentary that earned a Webby, Sundance Brand Storytelling Award, Tribeca X Award, and SXSW Feature.

Shaylyn Romney Garrett

America's Upswing

Co-hosted with the E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues at the Lied Center for Performing Arts. Separate (free) tickets required.

Social entrepreneur and coauthor of The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again, Garrett has shared her opinions, writing, and research in numerous outlets including TIME Magazine, The New York Times, National Public Radio, BBC Radio, and the PBS Newshour. Her nonprofit work has been featured by the New York Times, FastCompany, LinkedIn, and Harvard Business Review. In 2011 she was honored with the Draper Richards Kaplan Social Entrepreneurship Fellowship, and was a finalist in the global Echoing Green Competition. She was twice awarded a membership to the Clinton Global Initiative, and has been a speaker at TEDx. Garrett holds a BA in Government from Harvard University.

Carol Graham

Success in Conservation; Partnering with Producers and Private Landowners

Manitoba Habitat Conservancy (MHC) has been delivering conservation programs on private lands across southern Manitoba for 40 years. Enhancing habitat for species at risk and managing wetlands for waterfowl has required partnerships with producers, landowners, and industry. An emphasis on a collaborative approach has resulted in successful securement, enhancement, and mitigation of wildlife habitats in Manitoba. This community approach not only maintains ecological integrity and promotes biodiversity but also ensures ecosystem resilience and long-term ecological stability, beneficial for both producers and private landowners. Graham will speak about lessons learned and successes achieved over the years with programs that target native grassland management for wildlife and livestock production, upland enhancement for nesting habitats, and wetland retention and restoration for waterfowl.

Carol Graham is the Conservation Program Manager with Manitoba Habitat Conservancy. As a Habitat Conservation Specialist, she has been responsible for the enhancement of native grassland habitats in southwestern Manitoba for 15 years. Prior, she developed resource management plans for rangelands and forests. Carol has a Master of Science from the University of Manitoba and spends considerable time hiking, paddle boarding and exploring remote regions of the landscape.