Photo: Katie Watson speaking at ICS 2018. Copyright: Shuli Hallak.

The 2022 Indigenous Connectivity Summit (ICS) will be held in-person in Winnipeg, Canada, on October 24-28.

The Indigenous Connectivity Summit brings together Indigenous community members, leaders, network operators, researchers and policymakers with a common goal: to connect Indigenous communities to fast, affordable and sustainable internet.

For six years the ICS has brought leaders from across Canada and the United States to work together on solutions to tackle the digital inequalities faced by Indigenous communities who remain disproportionately underserved and without the full benefits of internet connectivity. In many North American Indigenous communities fewer than 1 in 3 people have broadband access — though in many areas, reliable connectivity is even more scarce.

This 2022 Summit will focus on ensuring that the increased political energy dedicated to digital equity in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic translates into lasting action that expands internet connectivity and adoption for Indigenous Peoples.

It will bring together many of the leading advocates of Indigenous connectivity to identify a path forward for communities to have affordable, accessible, and equitable access to the internet. 

This will be the first in-person ICS since the Summit became a virtual event during the Covid-19 pandemic. We’re excited to be together in person once more for five days of training, workshops, presentations, and community-building that will set us up to drive progress together.

Sign up to receive an alert when registration is live. We welcome leaders in the internet access community from Arctic Canada to Hawai’i and everywhere in between.

As in previous years, there will be a series of online workshops for participants in the lead up to the Summit. These will include technical training focused on building and operating sustainable community networks and introductory sessions on broadband policy, advocacy, and funding opportunities. Participants will lead a Summit session on crafting policy recommendations, which will guide advocacy efforts through the coming year.

This year’s Summit marks a major milestone as the first ICS led by the Indigenous Connectivity Institute — a new Indigenous-led organization that works to scale the support, knowledge, and financial resources that Indigenous people need to build digital equity in their communities and on their terms.

Since the Internet Society held the inaugural ICS in 2017, it has evolved into much more than an event. It has grown into a strong movement of advocates focused on finding, advocating, and building practical solutions to improve access in Indigenous communities across North America. As the Summit graduates to its new home at the Indigenous Connectivity Institute, the Internet Society has achieved one of its initial goals to create a truly community-led event. 

The Internet Society will remain a co-organizer of this years’ event, alongside Connect Humanity, which hosts the Indigenous Connectivity Institute.

The Indigenous Connectivity Institute is a community of leaders working in North America to close the Indigenous digital divide by scaling the support, knowledge, and financial resources that Indigenous people need to build digital equity in their communities and on their own terms. It is incubated by Connect Humanity.