Corey Ashley
Community Lead at Indizitize
Maricopa, Arizona, USA / American Indian-Diné (Navajo)
👨 he/him/his
🎓 Stanford University, Bachelor of Science in Science, Technology, and Society
😁 Corey is in a heavy metal band and besides computer science, music is his other passion!
Corey created an app to better connect Diné culture to the Navajo people’s everyday lives.
ABOUT HIS WORK
Corey wanted to know how technology could be used as a tool for cultural and language revitalization, so while in college, Corey Ashley developed an app called "Diné Adóone’é," which means Navajo clans. The purpose of this app was to reintegrate Diné culture into Navajo people’s lives using technology through expressing kinship. The app tells Diné people how they are related through their clans using the Navajo language, which is how the Diné traditionally express kinship. As Diné culture and language struggles to stay strong, it is important to weave it into our everyday lives. Technology can be used as a tool to achieve this. The app that Corey created is one example of using CS to help Indigenous communities.
WATCH & DISCUSS
Watch: Living in Two Worlds: Using Tech to Sustain the Navajo Nation
Discuss:
What problem does Corey’s work help solve?
What technology tools do you use to communicate with your relatives?
How can Corey’s app help people better connect with their relatives?
If you could create an app, what problem would it solve?
EXTENSION ACTIVITIES
Use identity charts to deepen students’ understanding of themselves
Use Scratch to teach another language
PiLa-CS Multilingual Word Wall-- 10 Block Challenge: Google Slides, PDF Slides
Ideas to help your community
How are the projects mentioned in the video helping Native communities?
ADVICE TO YOUNGER SELF
Corey first learned computer science after high school.
“There is no rush to get to where you want to be. I have unique experiences and challenges as a Navajo student moving through the world. Science, Technology, and Society allowed me to dig into the dynamics that surround technology from a Navajo perspective and allowed me to understand my journey in depth and to help others navigate higher education.”
