Arctic traditions meet AI – course in Canada and Alaska inspires future research

Nikiforos Staveris is a Master Student in Artificial Intelligence at Umeå University. He will participate in an academic course for Master’s and Doctoral students along the coast of the Northwest passage. The course will take place one week in Cambridge Bay, Canada, and then continue for another week in Anchorage, Alaska. The course is called “Arctic Future Pathfinders” and provides 10 university credits. One of the main objectives of the course is to learn from the Indigenous people who inhabit the areas.

“We will meet with the people living in these areas and learn from their knowledge about the traditions, ways of life, how life has been for generations and how that is being impacted now. In the Arctic, these people are the true knowledge holders,” Nikiforos says.

From sunny Greece to the calm Arctic

Nikiforos Staveris has his roots in Greece, both in Athens and the island Lesbos, but his academic journey has taken him far north. While completing a degree in computer science at the Athens University of Economics and Business, he went studying abroad for a semester at the  Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. There, he fell in love with the Arctic nature, which motivated him to come to Umeå.

The calmness here gives you space to think and evolve.

“I liked nature so much I took the opportunity to do my master’s here at Umeå University. It is quite the same latitude as Trondheim, so I get to be in the same type of nature. The calmness here gives you space to think and evolve”

Nikiforos has been in Umeå for a year and has just begun his second year within his master’s in Artificial Intelligence. He has already engaged in projects connected to Arctic perspectives, for example a digital art installation exhibited at Wasa Future Festival in Finland. Nikiforos and a group of students used generative AI to simulate aurora projections that light up when people walk by. The aim of the project was to make dark winter nights feel safer and more inclusive in northern communities.

“This was our idea of how you can use generative AI to highlight those social aspects and help create a safer and more inclusive environment. Many people find solace and consolation in the northern lights.”

Hopes the course will bring new perspectives on Indigenous knowledges and technology

Nikiforos has not yet decided what he wants to focus on for his master’s research project, but hopes that the course will inspire his future work. More specifically, he hopes the course will provide perspectives on how to develop AI systems that are ethical, culturally respectful, and actually serve Arctic communities.

“I think the perspectives and knowledge people have in these areas are not very represented in the technical systems that we are building so solve problems. I hope to get a field perspective and understand ways of how to respectfully incorporate knowledge holders’ insights and priorities into AI models designed for Arctic applications”

Apart from learning from the indigenous people, Nikiforos also hopes to learn a lot from the other 40 participants in the course. They are all from different parts of the world, and different fields of research, who carry different perspectives and knowledge.

I think the perspectives and knowledge people have in these areas are not very represented in the technical systems that we are building so solve problems.

Wants to raise awareness for the global impacts the Arctic has

Even though Nikiforos is quite new to Arctic perspectives, he realises that challenges like climate change in the Arctic impact the whole world. This is something he thinks is important and drives him in his work.

“In the south, you think of the Arctic as remote and far away, and everything happening there does not affect you, but that is not true. I am very interested in raising awareness, because what is happening in the Arctic is a chain reaction, and we don’t realise that the changes here affect the whole world, and they are happening fast.”

Nikiforos Staveris might be new to Arctic-related research, but has already approached the area and the related issues several times. His drive to explore new perspectives, as well as blend technology, culture, and environment in his work, makes him a promising researcher within future AI research in the Arctic and beyond.