Indigital

“I think the best way to get me to achieve something is to tell me I can’t do it.”

Plenty of people told indigenous park ranger and mum-of-two Mikaela Jade that her idea to use augmented reality to bring ancient Aboriginal stories to life wasn’t possible. 

Frustrated with engraved metal signs being used to explain indigenous cultural places and heritage, Jade was determined to find a way to allow the traditional owners of the land to tell their stories in their own words and let them come to life through animation, song and language.  

But convincing someone to help her get her digital tech company, Indigital, off the ground wasn’t easy. 

“One investor said to me: ‘I’m going to be honest with you, you’re a female indigenous person working in tech in a remote area, quite frankly, that’s high risk,’” Jade, who was living in Kakadu at the time, told Audi Magazine.  

“I went out to tender twice in Australia and people in the industry said 'no you don’t have enough money, this kind of technology will never be able to be used outside without the internet, Aboriginal people don't use tech,' so I got pretty upset about that but it was almost like I could hear my ancestors telling me not to give up.”

Crying on her bed at 9pm at night before the end of the grant period, Jade knew she couldn’t give up. She pulled herself together, googled ‘augmented reality developers’ and hit the phone. 

“I ended up cold calling people all through the night with a really crappy pitch, 'Hi I'm a woman from Australia, I've got $25,000 and I want to make an app where you use AR to tell Aboriginal

stories without the internet,'” she said. “Everyone thought I was mad except for one company in the UK who said 'ok, it's bold, it's never been done, but we'll work with you.”’

Six years on, the 2018 Instyle and Audi Women of Style dual award winner now runs a multi-faceted company that goes well beyond her original plan for the project.  

Indigital’s first-of-its-kind app allows users to hold their mobile device up to a pre-programmed indigenous object, artwork or place, and the traditional owner associated with the site comes to life in a 3D animation, sharing ancient knowledge or dreamings.

“We've been able to make two dimensional cave drawing figures stand up in 3D and make them move and dance in animation to give it context. It does really powerful things,” she added. 

On top of the revolutionary app, Jade’s company now advocates for indigenous digital rights at the United Nations forum on indigenous issues every year in New York. They also work with other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations to help them create their own augmented reality storytelling and are working with the NSW department of education, Microsoft and shared path organisations to roll out a curriculum in selected schools.

“So we go from grass roots right up to changing the whole world,” Jade said. 

Which is exactly the same approach she has taken with the 30 indigenous women and five primary schools Indigital has mentored through their Digital Custodians program, helping them to ruffle feathers, smash glass ceilings and demonstrate how indigenous people can take a lead role in the digital economy.

“Our communities are often told we can't achieve things or certain areas are out of our reach as indigenous Australians,” she said. “We're empowered to excel in some areas of life like sport and art and music but there hasn’t been a lot of opportunity for people to be able to experiment in science, technology and engineering.” 

Incredibly, while her ties to her country and people are what made this project so important to her, it wasn’t until Jade was 29 that she discovered her indigenous heritage and why she was so instinctively drawn to the bush. 

“When I went to work as a park ranger in Queensland, the traditional owners kept identifying me as an Aboriginal woman,” she said. “They kept asking me what my country was and I said 'Australia' and they said ‘don't worry, you'll find your mob’ and I didn’t really think too much of it and then it happened all over again when I moved to The Pilbara in Western Australia so I thought 'there’s something in this'”. 

While her family had never wanted to talk about their heritage, Jade’s grandfather eventually gave her a book of all her family’s genealogy on their Aboriginal side. 

“He knew everything,” she recalled, “he knew names, what tribe we were from and who we descended from.

“It made so much sense and really helped me understand why I do the things that I do and why I'm so connected to country. It was such a time of healing to understand how I fit into the world and made a really strong foundation for being about to move forward with the work I do now.”

In May, Jade was awarded the Creative Visionary accolade and overall Judge’s Award at the InStyle and Audi Women Of Style awards – a dual win she said still “surprises” her. 

“I’m not doing this because I want to win awards or I want to have this amazing tech company,” she said, “I'm doing it because it needs doing and I have just been so surprised by the support because I've been doing it for a long time now. Because I had so many ‘no's’, having people open doors and say ‘yes, we want to get behind you’ is really emotional and surprising and exciting because we've cracked the glass ceiling on this one and that means other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women can as well.”