October 15, 2025 • 40 mins
A conversation with Akilah Martinez, an XR innovator making waves through hackathons, collaborations with Snapchat, and building culturally disruptive digital ecosystems. Tech meets culture in the most unexpected ways.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, everyone, before the episode starts, be sure to subscribe
and rate the show. If you're enjoying it, thanks for listening.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
I think that I always knew that I never wanted
like a traditional job.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
This is burn Sage, Burn Bridges. I'm your host, Nicole Garcia.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
I loved being creative and I wanted to just find
a way to be creative. When I was young, like
around three years old, like I feel like my lifelong
goal was given to me. I would constantly watch my
grandparents have to watch TV programming that was only offered
in English. They only spoke to Nevazod. So at that age,
I was like, one day, I'm going to make media
in our language. So in college, when I was introduced
(00:51):
to like video production and video editing, I created my
very first videos in d Nevazod, like these vlog style
type videos, and this was like twenty twelve. They loved it,
and then I got introduced to like XR technology towards
the end of my college career. It all came full
circle because after graduating, I moved home to the Res
(01:13):
and I took care of my grandma from twenty fourteen
into hospice until she passed away twenty eighteen, before she'd
passed away, I got to show her one of the
films that I was futured in call It's Not Free,
and I spoke to abazade in there, and she absolutely
loved it. She was probably about the age of ninety four.
It was the first time she ever saw a motion picture.
I'm pretty sure in the Navaju language. She absolutely just
(01:36):
wanted to keep watching it over and over again, and
she couldn't believe it that it was me in there,
because she had a little dementia, you know, and she
couldn't believe it was me. That moment really in reinforce
for me, like what I was doing, why I was
doing it, and probably why I would never give.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Up doing it. Native people have always been innovators. We
solve problems, build communities and find new ways forward. Today
in tech, we're doing it again.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
My name is Akuila Martinez Kuila Martinez Yenesie Hanlaha. I
am from the Bred Springs community on the Navajo Nation.
I am a creative technologist and artist, and I have
turned my passions into a business where I focus on
(02:23):
creating indigenous based circular economic ecosystems through XR technology, which
means augmented reality, virtual reality, are mixed reality, emerging media,
and language and culture revitalization.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
That is so cool because I know people probably have
the same question I had. I'm just finding out about
XR reality. So give us some examples of what each
of those things are, because there's a bunch of things
that encompass x are correct.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Yeah, So XR means extended reality, and that's an umbrella
term for augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality. So
virtual reality is kind of maybe the more popular one
where it's like the virtual headsets that people put on,
like the oculuses and stuff like that are now the
metaquest But for me, I like augmented reality. So a
(03:09):
good example of that is POKEMONO. It's a lot more
accessible through mobile devices, and I feel like it's a
lot more accessible medium for the reservations. So yeah, I
love augmented reality. But a cool thing that a development
of that is the creation of augmented reality glasses, so
they're much more lightweight than like the heavy headsets of VR.
(03:32):
Virtual reality. Mixed reality is more of like maybe you're
wearing the heavy headset of the metaquests. It's not totally
like immersive experience, Like you'll have maybe digital information mixed
with the physical world and then there might be some
components of like physics involved, so then the digital layers
(03:53):
are actually interacting with the physical components in a space.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Wow, that's so cool futuristic. It's reminded me of a matrix.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah, Like, that's so funny that you said that, because
like a couple months ago I kind of got like
into the feeling of the digital rain in the matrix,
and so I have a project coming out at the
Route sixty six Visitor Center in Albuquerque. I have an
AR space there that kind of has a little bit
of digital rain with an AR experience.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
I met you like a year ago. Maybe because of
this opportunity, I had to quickly get an LLC, which
that's like not my world. So it was kind of
like looking around, I'm like I don't know where to start,
Like this is I'm not you know, never had to
do this, but I saw on social media someone posting
like a class and it was through New Mexico Community Capital.
(04:43):
New Mexico Community Capital supports entrepreneurs with education, mentorship, and resources.
They help grow indigenous led businesses and work with other
groups to make that happen. That's actually how I met Aquila.
She was one of the mentors in the program. And
then I think the American Indian Business Enterprise and probably
(05:03):
like MSU, and so they were like, we can help you.
We can help people, you know, yeah, people starting business.
And I was like, is this for real? Like that's interesting.
So I clicked on it. I feeled at the application.
I swear probably like not even very long. I got
an email being like, oh, we chose you, and I'm like, oh, okay, wow,
you know, and at the end of the classes they
wanted us to pitch and then oh yeah yeah, and
then they would give us some funding to help us
(05:26):
with where we are in our business. Some people already
had LLCs. Some people didn't like myself during the classes
they were teaching us like how did get an LLC?
Or like how did your tax is? Like all this
stuff that is not I mean, who knows that not
somebody like me? Yeah? So yeah. The cool thing about
New Mexico community capitals are so many entrepreneurs. There's like
a lot of people in fashion, a lot of people
(05:47):
and like food, like anything that could be a business,
they're there. So it was kind of really cool to
meet all those people that are these spaces that I'm like, wow,
that's so cool, you know, so much inspiration, and they've
been nothing but supportive. And everybody I've met through there
has been so talented and just like helpful.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
There's so many amazing people within the broader I guess,
like you would call it the indigenous entrepreneurial ecosystem is
amazing to be part of.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Yeah. Yeah, and the Native people are just innately creative.
We're always creating something art I guess, but everybody does it. Yeah,
it's just like a normal thing. Like you don't just
do one thing. You'd probably do like three things or
four things or more. So you had already gone through
this probably or you've gone through the pitch I saw,
so you were actually teaching what I was in. So
you were one of the instructors. So then we had
(06:35):
a like a little one on one together. Yeah, yeah,
and that was it was really fun to actually talk
to you one on one and tell you what it
was up to. And you actually helped name the show.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Oh well, yeah, I remember the time you were going
through you were undecided on the name of the show.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Yeah, And your perspective was from a tech world or
like someone who's on the internet, you know, marketing and stuff.
You were like, well, it's kind of long, you know,
the way you have it now, like we can shorten
it this way. And you gave me a bunch of
examples of what looks better and like the balance of
it and everything, all these things that nobody thinks about.
That was so insightful and just very helpful. And I
(07:16):
was like, oh my god, this girl is like so
freaking smart. You're so sweet.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Oh my gosh, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Thank you. Yeah, So I hope you remember that. I
do for sure, Okay.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
I love the community at New Mexico Community Capital, and
I was around twenty twenty that they were doing one
of the bmes, the course that you went through. I
wanted to be in the course because I was trying
to take my business idea more serious. And so you
had to go through AIB to sign up, right because
they were in partnership to host the Business Marketing Essentials courses.
So I did that and went through the same process
(07:47):
as you got in. And then a couple years later
and AIB American Business Enterprise, they were hosting their annual
conference in Albuquerque, I joined the pitch competition, and yeah,
it was really cool, cool experience. My pitch idea was
or is for my current business, Glittering World Girl.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Oh got it.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
And so with Glittering worll giral, it's creating media to
revitalize language and culture revitalization through XR technology and like
video production. How I kind of got more involved with
the course that you had to take in with NMCC.
That was through just my passion for entrepreneurship, my love
for entrepreneurship and being a mentor and trying to just
(08:33):
mentor and get familiar with the ecosystem more and marketing.
So a couple of years ago, I was getting like
really into marketing and like helping native organizations increase their
engagement by like three hundred to five hundred percent. And
then I just like really started wanting to focus on
my business more. So that's kind of what I've been
doing for the past couple of years. It's funny because
(08:56):
I was just thinking, like last night, I was like,
oh my gosh, I still need to like, you know,
work on my marketing for a Glittering World Girl like more.
You know, It's like as founders there's so many things
to do. Last year I was doing pretty good like
posting kind of often, but now definitely coming up with
a strategy to just get content and to post it
at least a weekly. I know some businesses are like
(09:18):
three times a week or whatever, but I feel like, honestly,
like success is not measured by that. Especially my approach
to entrepreneurship is like really flow flow based, really like
taking the time to rest as well.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Yeah, yeah, that's what would I would struggle with. I'm
either going hardcore and like super tired and then have
to go to a cave for like months, So the
balance is very important otherwise to just crash out. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Yeah, so that's kind of like my approach is just
there's a lot of relaxing involved. Perfect, And yeah, it's
just a whole different like mindset shift, you know, like
with modern society or like traditional American societies, go go
go work, work, work, work, You're back off, you know totally.
But I've been like, you know, restructuring that paradigmond within
(10:05):
my mind, and it's been working so far.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
That's good. Yeah, yeah, I would love to do that.
I wish you could like harness when you're motivated and
the waves coming, but you could it's almost like you
can never predict when that's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
It's crazy.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Yeah, I think that sometimes it's like you just got
to keep going and just at least take care of yourself,
you know, each maybe have electrolytes.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
I've been trying to be nicer to myself. I realize
that I'm not that nice to myself, even if I
did just get up and like go to work, which
I have a job, and fed myself a mill, and
did I have dogs and I did all that, and
then I'm still feeling guilty that I didn't do X
y Z. It's like I did a lot keeping myself alive,
and yeah, there's yeah, so I need to start being
a little more nicer and yeah, have the balance and stuff.
(10:54):
And even the producer I work with it I already
always gives me a hard time. He's like, you're so
hard on your life. You gets so mad that I
just can't take compliments or and he's just like, oh
it was fine, it was good, Like why are yeah? Yeah,
And it gets embarrassing. It's like, okay, I can't be this.
I really got to like figure out.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
I think that a lot of people go through that.
For me, like, I've just been rewiring this whole approach
to entrepreneurship and success and like I said, letting it
be more of a flow based thing. Last fall, I
(11:30):
helped facilitate a fellowship at DNA College and I developed
a workshop series that I've been wanting to develop for
a couple of years. It was titled create a Life
that you Want, and just something about accessing the most
successful part of you through traditional teachings. A lot of
these days it's kind of like neuroscience is catching up
(11:53):
to these teachings that we had. So this upcoming fall
or whatever, working with NMCC hopefully to really launch this
workshop series for entrepreneurs. And it's more about like giving
yourself the credit, practicing self love and how that's like
really important when approaching entrepreneurship and just developing an abundance mindset.
(12:14):
And it's just about like really reframing like that wiring
within us that we have to keep like really work hard.
That's the only way to success, and like from my
experience with my entrepreneurial journey, that's not true. So yeah,
I just really want to share that.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
With the community. I think that that's important. I think
that also as Native people, this isn't this isn't how
we lived a long time ago, like this this is
kind of like a different world that we're adapting to.
That doesn't mean that we should change completely. I think
that like the basis of how we survive this far
need to keep happening, and that means like taking care
(12:49):
of yourself, taking care of where you are first, and
not being so greedy because that's kind of what people
think when they think of you know, selling stuff and whatever.
It's totally a different mindset and it's hard to like
make those two work in your mind. But I know
there's a way, and there's you're probably one of the
people leading the way to do that and having that
balance potentially.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Yeah, Like I think there's a definite like difference between
greed and wealth. Traditional American media is like and society
has been built off of greed, but that's not the
abundance that we were born into like as humans, like
this workshop series will go all the way into all
that into those different points.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
As it should.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
I think that, like with traditional forms of media, like
you know, Hollywood and like even history books and stuff.
It was a really biased media that a certain group
had the ownership of, you know, the kind of storytelling
that was told through those medias. With XR technology, it's
really cool because it's in emergent technology and no one
really owns the narrative told through XR technology right now,
(13:50):
and it's kind of like in emergent technology that is
going to really shape how the world finds entertainment. Not
only that, but like educational experiences, educational information. So right now,
I feel like it's so important to get all kinds
of different voices in the media, so many different communities
can be uplifted from it. That's one reason why I
(14:11):
really love XR technology and just kind of trying to
create the representation there for Indigenous voices and communities. There's
so much traction going on within that, and I feel
like within the space a lot like the community, the
XR community in general, they're really supportive of me as well,
so I'm thankful for.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
That, yes, and we're also lucky that you are getting
in this space, which seems to be like the beginning,
like it's not like it hasn't been around for very long,
which is great because we're often not the group that
gets in in the beginning. Being Navajo, like knowing your
history and knowing what your ancestors went through, that's why
you're so vital to the language and all the stuff
you're doing with that. I love that you bring all
(14:52):
that stuff in.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
I have like a workshop series coming up where I'll
be teaching on the Navajo reservation in Albuquerque, probably at
the New Mexico Community Capital Resilience Hub, and then at
UCLA as well, particularly directed towards indigenous communities to learn
about XR technology and having participants, like launched the first
(15:15):
augmented reality app just because I feel like there needs
to be more Indigenous people in this space. I went
to the MIT Reality hack this past year as well.
Last year, I'm like ninety nine point nine percent sure
that i was the only Native American person from the
fifty states that was in the whole hackathon of like
(15:36):
over four hundred hackers. You know, I wouldn't be surprised
if that's true. Yeah, probably is true. Like I feel
like it'll be definitely mutually beneficial. Like there's so much
talent on the res artistic talent, and so like AR
would just be like another tool in their toolbox, and
maybe even a source of income and a way to
become financially stable as well.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
So all of that's going.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
To kind of be packed into these workshops.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
But you're the perfect person who is in this space
the XR and all the tech stuff, because you're a
good communicator and also you have the drive for some
sort of entrepreneurship stuff. And also it helps that you're artistic.
I think you need to be artistic to be in
this space. I think when there is just people that
are very tech people but they're not creative and they
(16:22):
maybe don't want to like communicate, then we don't really
learn from those people. We just see, oh they did this,
they built this. But like, because you care about your
community and you're a teacher, I think that's perfect. And
then you have to be creative. I think all the
stuff I've seen you do, it's like you kind of
have to have a vision and that's creativity.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
That means a lot. Thank you so much, because I
have been trying to improve my communication skills not just
with like peers or like professional acquaintances or relationships, and
I actively started throwing myself out there and doing more
public speaking and wanting to perfect public speaking more and
(17:00):
even just like family members, like close relationships, being a
better communicator in general. But yeah, creativity, I feel like
I've just always been an artist at heart, and there's
a lot of stuff I still want to do, but
I feel like getting glittering a girl to where itself
sustaining and sustainable is kind of the mission and goal.
(17:21):
So yeah, that's just something that I've been tackling.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
That's cool. Yeah, well, I mean you're doing a lot
because just think about like the typical person probably isn't
going to be out there like teaching classes and helping
people name their podcasts and tell you know.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Yeah, Like I feel like mentorship, like in order to grow,
it's good to have a mentor. And I feel like
when I'm doing mentorship, one thing that I feel like
is really valuable about what I offer is that the
intent that I have for the person that I'm talking
to and like kind of already seeing them successful. And
that's kind of like about the energy behind the call,
(17:57):
The energy behind the entrepreneurship, I feel like is the
most important. Like I really hold everyone that I've met
through my mentoring sessions that that are knowing actually that
that helps manifest that for them. I guess I got
to meet with a couple people at dont College of
the students there when I was doing my fellowship there. Man,
(18:18):
like Donutt College has so many talented people. It's amazing,
Like I was, oh my gosh, you know, because I
grew up south of Gallup, I never really experienced the
Arizona side of the res. Yeah, and so it's amazing
and I can't wait to see where you know, everyone
goes from there that they have so much talent, and
having a mentoring one on one session with them was
really fun. And that's a kind of a passion that
(18:41):
I have. So I think that's the part of like,
you know, why I want to host these workshops is
because I want I want to see the best for people.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
I guess if people.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Weren't there to offer the opportunities of like the courses
I took and like the grants that I got, like,
I don't know where I would be, you know, So
I would love to just be that facilitator as well.
Native people are so brilliant. The net people are so brilliant,
Like we're amazing. I have other try lineage too, but
I mainly Dinet and I grew up diet. But yeah,
(19:10):
like so many smart people.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Over there, they grow up with different barriers and so
they are able to like solve those problems. So I'm
sure it's like living out there's there's so many barriers
and there's so many things you're constantly doing. They're taking
your livestock there. You know, there's it's a harder world.
So you're probably thinking a lot more and probably smarter
than us.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Yeah, Like the innovation is high innovation and like that,
like the whole thing of like you know, the ancestral
knowledge is like you know, the ancestral science and all that,
like you know, when you're grow up wired like that,
it's amazing. And like I was saying earlier, like modern
physics and stuff like that, they're finally catching up to
these concepts.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
So yeah, big ups to the nation. Yeah, I know,
like even like weaving, like my mom, my, grandma, everybody weaves,
and it's it's so much math. It's so much yeah,
like you have to really plan and I not everybody
could do it and make like a perfect rug if
there's some things and factors, and these women and men
are just doing it like not even a thought. Yeah,
(20:16):
I'd have to like write down stuff and count and yeah.
And that's so.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Cool that you bring that up because, like, you know,
weaving traditionally, like we got that from Spider Woman, right,
so it's been in our.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Blood, right.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
And the cool thing about that is, like during like
around the Industrial Revolution, or it could be some time
earlier after, there was a micro like you know, breadboards
and chips, those kind of like the chips that make
up the electronic commuter tips.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Yeah, exactly like.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
That kind of stuff. They actually had a plant near
ship Rock.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
I believe I heard about that.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Yeah, yeah, and they had like they hired all kinds
of like Navajo women too, because they couldn't find anyone
that was able to create these lines intricately. So they've
hired like Navajo women to create these like circuit boards
or the chips for this company. Now, if you see
some of the chips in the electrical chips or the
circuit boards that they're really like some of them are
(21:08):
patterns like of the Navajo rugs.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
It's crazy. And some rug weavers who work there are
weaving rugs that look like computer chips. I didn't know
that until I saw a rug that looked like a
computer chip and I was like, whoa, what what is this?
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Really was it a reference to that? Yeah it was
she had made it out out of memory from working there.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Yeah, I think it's at the herd. But god, that
was so cute. Yeah, it was a really huge run
and I'm like I see that. Yeah, it's cool. But
and then they were like, oh, yeah this happened. I'm like,
I had no idea that that.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Yeah, Like there's so many things that like we helped
shape that just like never got the credit that it
needed to. And now the truth is coming out.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
We are kind of like always been here. But also
Native people, Navjo people were not. It's kind of in
ue to not talk about ourselves or to talk amy
so al must do. I was always told, like, you know,
don't tell people what you're doing, like just yeah, you
always gotta like, you know, do your thing. I think
it's just you don't want to call like make anybody
(22:07):
feel bad, or you don't want to like I don't
know what it is, but yeah, I get that, but
I also feel like not that it could be healthy,
it couldn't be who knows exactly, but what I think
is it's got us here because I think that's how
we survived. Mmm. I think it's a survival tactic.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
I wonder about those type of things, like where those
things like survival tactics or something like or result of
colonization or something like. I feel like the intent behind it.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Is what matters.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Like are you boasting to like make people feel bad?
Because there are people who intentionally do that, But are
you like sharing what you're doing because you want to inspire,
you want to uplift them? Because for me, like personally,
like sharing my story on social media and stuff like that,
that has been the catalyst of me getting more opportunities
Otherwise if I'm just quiet and doing like you know,
(22:56):
not really posting anything or letting the world know what
it's going on over here, Like, how is anyone going
to know?
Speaker 1 (23:02):
So?
Speaker 2 (23:02):
I think there's a fine line between those different things.
And I attended this amazing webinar a couple years ago
held by Menace, a man who's a doctor, and he
was talking about like the protection way ceremony approach to
like social and emotional behavioral sciences and stuff like that.
Nice yeah, and he was like everyone's telling us you
(23:24):
you can't be talking about III and stuff like that.
But he was like, confidence is actually like a real
important thing. And then after I did more research about this,
like Dan Donna and the Holy People, confidence is one
of the things that they gave us. When I was
listening to this webinar, he was like, if you think
about it, like our ancestors had so much confidence that
they didn't speak English but they went to Washington, d C.
(23:48):
To advocate for their people. That's how much confidence they
had in themselves. You think about that and like, yeah,
I think like self confidence is so important because if
you don't believe in yourself, then who else is going
to believe you? You know, believe in you and energetically
there's a lot better things that are going to maybe
go your way if you're more confident. So I think
(24:10):
that that's so important. But not doing it in like
a toxic way for sure.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
I want to talk about all the stuff you've been
doing lately, Like I saw that you brought it up
about the MIT. Aquila recently participated in the MIT Reality Hackathon.
A hackathon is basically a fast paced event where you
team up to build creative tech projects. Your team one
for creating and what did you guys create like an
app or Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
So I was originally scheduled to present at the Reality
Hack and also I wanted to participate in the hackathon
as well. Being in New Mexico, I didn't really have
like a strong XR community. A little backstory. In twenty fourteen,
I got nominated for the New Mexico Women in Tech
(24:53):
Award and one of the ladies that was voting on
nominations she was like, I guess she was in the
XAR field. So I got connected with her. I ended
up getting the Emerging Leader Award for that opportunity. But yeah,
I ended up meeting this girl Billigana girl from Texas,
Lauren Cousin, and she has been developing AR for a
(25:13):
really long time. She's like been a client of Snapchat
for so long and like helping develop their not helping
but developing for their different iterations of their AR glasses.
She's been an amazing, amazing person, like ready to connect
you and introduce you to whoever you know what I mean.
Fast forward to Reality Hack this year, I was presenting.
(25:36):
I get a text message from her She's like, hey,
are you here at Reality Hack? And her and her
co founder Sam were also there and they were also
planning on participating in the hackathon. They were like, do
you want to join our team? We should put New
Mexico on the map. It was originally her idea to
(26:02):
build an augmented reality mobility AID because of a previous
experience with her mom having to use a walker all
of a sudden and just like how there was no
information on how to properly set a walker or how
the patient should be properly walking in a walker. So
she was like, I want to create an ar experience
around this. Do you want to go in? And I
was like kind of like, oh, do I want to
(26:23):
going on? And so I decided to join their team.
So it was me, Lauren and Sam and then two
girls from Los Angeles, Aya and Shade, and yeah, we
formed this amazing team. Lauren knows that I'm like really
strong and creating like Navajo language and culture stuff. The
crazy thing is like, before I even knew Sam and
Lauren were there, always thinking to myself, it would be
(26:46):
cool if I could find a team that would be
up to like create our hakathon project in the Navajo language.
You know, you don't know how many people are gonna
be down for that, you know what I mean. And
I was like, Oh, if it doesn't happen, I guess
it's cool whatever. I'm here to learn. I'm learn so much.
When I had a team formed, I was like, it
would be cool to create a version of this project
(27:06):
in Navajo and one in English. And she was like down,
She's like a ally, you know what I mean, She's amazing,
and she was like up for it. And she was like,
we should name the project something in your language. What's
what would be a good name for this? And I
just thought about yego, like yego, you know what I mean, Like,
you know, go hard. And it was perfect for the
(27:28):
concept of like, you know, people having to adjust to
lifestyle change of being in a walker cane, like keep.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Going and you know you're, yeah, you might be hurt
right now.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
But keep going. And so it was amazing we created
this whole experience, one in English, one in the Nebizade,
and immediately so many things fell into place for it,
like just thinking about like the medical injustices that happened
on Native American reservations, but if we kind of like
(27:57):
provide a solution to that by putting indigenous communities at
the forefront of tech innovation in the medtech field. How
would that help us leapfrog into futuristic like healthcare. The
project ended up taking first place for the Founder's Lab
and also first place for the whole hackathon.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
That's incredible.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
It was amazing, a great experience.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
How long do they give your so it was a
team of.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Five Yeah, everyone, they had to be a team.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Of five's And how long are you guys given to
do this? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (28:26):
So gosh, I can't remember right now, but it's like
about two and a half days or three days or
something very long. Yeah, just so it's like a hackathon,
so go really quick. Well, I joined a hackathon last
year at Stanford for Stanford XR I Mers the Bay,
and that one was the first time I got introduced
to the Snapchat Spectacles, which is the AR glasses. I'm
(28:48):
an ar girly. I love AR way more than VR.
So I was like, and I tried the AR glasses
on and they're amazing, and I was like, I want
to develop for this. I want to find a team
who wants.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Really tell us why you like them more than the VR?
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Yeah, Like I feel like VR is like whenever I
wear like you know, rig on the headset, it's like
a heavy Yeah, it's like heavy and bulky, and like
for me personally, I get like vertigo when I'm in
it and I'm trying to walk and everything's immersive. AR
is like you're mixing the physical and the digital together,
so you can still see the physical world, but there's
(29:22):
digital content on top of it. So I love that more.
And the AR glasses are way more lightweight. They're just
like glasses, you know. So I found a team at
Stanford XR and that when we built an immersive audio
book within like thirty six hours, Wow, and we took
first place there.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
So and then for MIT Reality Hack, we use snap
spectacles again and we took first with that.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
So it's it's nice. So the book would be seen
through the spectacles. Is that what that is?
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Yeah? So you would have a physical book actually, and
then there would be like either audio, so there's audio
that comes out of the side of the glasses, so
there would be audio that comes out of it that
could read the pages to you. But then there's like
digital like interactive three D models or two D assets
that are on top of the book that interact with
the book and stuff like that. Got to be working
(30:14):
on a den version of it with one of my
teammates this year.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
That's cool. And then for the walker, did you guys
literally have to have like a physical walker there that
you built?
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Lauren? I think she just bought one from like Walgreens
or CVS.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
Or then like rigged it to do what you all
needed it to do.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
So it was a walker just like a regular walker.
The person puts on the ar glasses, they calibrate.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
It with their phone.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
The phone acts as a sensor in their pocket and
then so that is able to I guess triangulate data
between the phone, the spectacles and the ground. And so
that detects your posture measurements. Yeah, it's detecting your posture
as you're walking in the walker, and so if you
start to slouch too much, there's a ping that comes
up and says you need to stand straight and continue walking.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
And I was the voice actor for it, and I
made it look super cute. You know it is in
the dnebaside part it was like, oh, I guess, don't know.
Since then Nasco, you're not you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Like it was so cute.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
So when you are calibrating it at the beginning and
you put the phone next to your side, just at
a drop of your arm, that helps you set the
walker to the correct height that it's supposed to be at,
okay for your height. It was amazing because one of
the judges, prominent judges there, he was like in a
cane and he was like, I was walking around yesterday
telling people that, like so many people reinjure themselves just
(31:36):
because their cane is not set to the correct height.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
So you don't love Yeah, everyone like he loved it
and like, yeah, so it was cool, very cool, very cool. So,
like the way it works is you're only giving a
limited time to do this, so some of you guys
are coding and stuff. Some of you and like you
would be doing the voices and trying to figure out
how to do'll match it. So it's really like new
people that you're trying to actually do group project with
(31:59):
and like on the fly that is so cool, but
like probably super hard.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Yeah, like it gets it could be really stressful for
some people, Like for the Stanford experience, like we really
didn't sleep the last night. We stayed up all night
working there at the campus for Reality Hack. Thankfully, like
my team members, they wanted to sleep, so we actually
got a lot of like we went to sleep and
we at least probably got six or seven hours of
sleep at night. Other teams were staying up all night
(32:24):
trying to figure stuff out. Wow, And like these are
very emergent technologies, so sometimes you're like really learning how
to do it on the fly, like there's no documentation
of it on how to do what, so yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Yeah, yeah, that's kind of the best way to learn sometimes.
And these are happening probably annually.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Yeah, they happen like through different like organizations or institutions,
educational institutions, like multiple times a year. Anytime I go
through something like that, I go totally for like educational purposes,
just so I could learn more. Probably networking is great too,
networking yea yeah. And so are there backers there that
actually that like some of these things that you all
come up with at these events, they actually get picked
(33:04):
up and turned into like a real product. Yeah, yeah,
there are. And there's a few investors that really wanted
to invest in Yego, but like there was a problem
there that you know, the snap spectacles that At that
point in time, we didn't know when they were going
to be made available to the public, so you can't
really make it a consumer based product. But now Snap
(33:26):
has announced that the Spectacles are going to be available
to the public in twenty twenty six, so that changes
a lot for all developers developing for Snap Spectacles. There
are investors there, there's vcs there. Yeah, it's really fun,
and honestly, I just love being in community with people
and building community within the XR space. My main focus
(33:49):
is Glittering World Girl, and like it's like Glittering Girl
has been picking up, so that's really exciting. I have
Glittering World Girl, and then now I have Yego, which
is going to might maybe be its own little organization,
and then my team from Stanford US continuing to work
on other stuff with Snap right now. So there's like
(34:10):
these other things that are outside of Glittering Wall Girl,
but also kind of benefit all each other too as well.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
I'm sure there's like all these things that you're thinking
about creating with those same tools, because I can see
that helping a lot of different things.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. There's all kinds of stuff projects that
I probably can't really talk about right now, but Snap
working with Snap directly to develop those projects and to
get them out. So for some of the workshops, I'm
definitely gonna try to have like some of the Snap
spectacles available so at least, like, you know, the youth
(34:44):
can try it on the Reds who attend these workshops.
That way they could experience some of the most primary
innovation form of augmented reality.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Okay, that's cool, So people want to play with them.
I don't know what price range are. They pretty expensive.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
It hasn't been disclosed yet because they haven't been made
available to public. Oh yeah, but I actually have some.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Yeah, well, next time we meet up, you got to
let me try him. It's so cool And I'm not
from that world, so it's good to know you you too.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
I just really have a passion for entrepreneurship. Like I've
never really had a real job, and I feel like
growing up and I think that a lot of people
in the Reds could feel this, is that there was
a lack of opportunity, a lack of like even culturally
relevant job openings. Yeah, yeah, I feel like entrepreneurship and
(35:36):
business creation is like a way to counteract that and
like you have to create the space, create like our
own ecosystem where we have thriving communities with our own
businesses and you know, our culture and language represented in that.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
So yeah, it's a huge.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Passion for mine.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
I can't wait to work with you again because you've
been a good mentor to me.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Oh no, yeah, like it's it's it's awesome, and I
think it's so cool what you're doing here. It's so
needed and it's so fun. And I just want to, like,
you know, see where your podcast goes and the different
opportunities that I've gotten from mentors has been a huge
catalyst for me. So I just want to like pass
that on.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Yeah, I agree. I think having you as a mentor,
Henry and a lot of other people I met through
there also even with iHeart, I have a Max as
a producer. He's such Yeah, it has been so helpful
into this world. I don't know either, and you as well.
So like these past few years, I've just had to
learn so much stuff, but it's been positive because I've
(36:37):
I just can't believe there's so many people that are
willing to help you and want you to succeed. I
feel overwhelmed by some people's generosities and it's like wow,
because I think sometimes you don't know that. So yeah,
I really think mentorship is important. That's why I wanted
to talk to you and other Native people, mostly Navajo
for now talking about all these amazing things they're doing.
(37:00):
And so I mean just because that's who I know,
and start closest to me and talking about all these
great things, like other people who listen to podcasts can
learn about all these other amazing things that everybody's doing,
like yourself. So I know you have a podcast right
with different people to people, yes, to other people. Okay,
can you tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
We have a podcast called Medicine to Society and it's
with an old friend, good time friend, Watermelon seven. He
goes by that name. He's from Eslado Pueblo and he
has other kind of ancestry as well, and then Natani
means who's from the Navajo.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
Nation as well.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
So yeah, it's been a really exciting journey. Definitely check
us out. We've been on a hiatus since the summer
of twenty twenty four, but we're going to be rebooting
here in a while and we have a bunch of
like really exciting episodes coming out, so just in the
editing phase and stuff like that, revamping our website and
so yeah, catch us there. We do have a few
(37:55):
if you go to our YouTube Medicine to Society podcast
uplifting voices in the indigenous space and the indigenous communities.
And I'm super thankful just brought on as a what
do you call it, a host, So it was super fun,
Like Watermelon water asked me to be part of it,
and I'm super you know, excited about it because it
(38:19):
puts me in a collaborative space instead of because a
lot of the times with my work, I'm kind of
like in my own little corner, you know. So puts
me in a collaborative space and it allows me to
be like a more present listener. And that's the part
my mob I was telling you, I'm trying to get
better at communication in all different types of forms, so
it helps me with that and like communicating with our guests,
(38:40):
like you know, scheduling and all this and that. So
it's exciting. I'm super thankful because for me personally, like
since COVID and all that, and like dealing with a
couple losses in my personal life, Like I've been kind
of like, you know, in my own corner, you know
what I mean. Through this opportunity for medicine to society.
(39:00):
It's nice because it like reintroduces me to community, you
know what I mean. So that's nice. So I have
Glitteringworldgirl dot com and it's my little website that I
launched this year. You could have reached me there. I'm
pretty much Glittering World Girl on all social media handles.
You could reach me there and we could connect and
follow each other's journey and if anything was just connect
(39:25):
and being community together.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Yeah, yeah, we're existing, will always be connected. Thank you
for having me here. By the way, Oh my gosh,
it's really cool. And I think it's super cool that
you're here in Gallop. I love coming here. I mean
I love being back on the res, So it's cool
that you're here in Gallop doing this. Akila is at
(39:49):
the forefront of XR tech, creating culturally centered opportunities and
paving the way for future innovators. Her passion for entrepreneurship
is not just impactful, it's immersive. This episode of Burn Stage,
Burn Bridges was written and produced by myself Nicole Garcia,
along with Max Williams and Dylan Fagan. Special thanks to
(40:09):
our guests Aquila Martinez, thank you for listening.
Hey, everyone, before the episode starts, be sure to subscribe
and rate the show. If you're enjoying it, thanks for listening.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
I think that I always knew that I never wanted
like a traditional job.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
This is burn Sage, Burn Bridges. I'm your host, Nicole Garcia.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
I loved being creative and I wanted to just find
a way to be creative. When I was young, like
around three years old, like I feel like my lifelong
goal was given to me. I would constantly watch my
grandparents have to watch TV programming that was only offered
in English. They only spoke to Nevazod. So at that age,
I was like, one day, I'm going to make media
in our language. So in college, when I was introduced
(00:51):
to like video production and video editing, I created my
very first videos in d Nevazod, like these vlog style
type videos, and this was like twenty twelve. They loved it,
and then I got introduced to like XR technology towards
the end of my college career. It all came full
circle because after graduating, I moved home to the Res
(01:13):
and I took care of my grandma from twenty fourteen
into hospice until she passed away twenty eighteen, before she'd
passed away, I got to show her one of the
films that I was futured in call It's Not Free,
and I spoke to abazade in there, and she absolutely
loved it. She was probably about the age of ninety four.
It was the first time she ever saw a motion picture.
I'm pretty sure in the Navaju language. She absolutely just
(01:36):
wanted to keep watching it over and over again, and
she couldn't believe it that it was me in there,
because she had a little dementia, you know, and she
couldn't believe it was me. That moment really in reinforce
for me, like what I was doing, why I was
doing it, and probably why I would never give.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Up doing it. Native people have always been innovators. We
solve problems, build communities and find new ways forward. Today
in tech, we're doing it again.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
My name is Akuila Martinez Kuila Martinez Yenesie Hanlaha. I
am from the Bred Springs community on the Navajo Nation.
I am a creative technologist and artist, and I have
turned my passions into a business where I focus on
(02:23):
creating indigenous based circular economic ecosystems through XR technology, which
means augmented reality, virtual reality, are mixed reality, emerging media,
and language and culture revitalization.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
That is so cool because I know people probably have
the same question I had. I'm just finding out about
XR reality. So give us some examples of what each
of those things are, because there's a bunch of things
that encompass x are correct.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Yeah, So XR means extended reality, and that's an umbrella
term for augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality. So
virtual reality is kind of maybe the more popular one
where it's like the virtual headsets that people put on,
like the oculuses and stuff like that are now the
metaquest But for me, I like augmented reality. So a
(03:09):
good example of that is POKEMONO. It's a lot more
accessible through mobile devices, and I feel like it's a
lot more accessible medium for the reservations. So yeah, I
love augmented reality. But a cool thing that a development
of that is the creation of augmented reality glasses, so
they're much more lightweight than like the heavy headsets of VR.
(03:32):
Virtual reality. Mixed reality is more of like maybe you're
wearing the heavy headset of the metaquests. It's not totally
like immersive experience, Like you'll have maybe digital information mixed
with the physical world and then there might be some
components of like physics involved, so then the digital layers
(03:53):
are actually interacting with the physical components in a space.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Wow, that's so cool futuristic. It's reminded me of a matrix.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah, Like, that's so funny that you said that, because
like a couple months ago I kind of got like
into the feeling of the digital rain in the matrix,
and so I have a project coming out at the
Route sixty six Visitor Center in Albuquerque. I have an
AR space there that kind of has a little bit
of digital rain with an AR experience.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
I met you like a year ago. Maybe because of
this opportunity, I had to quickly get an LLC, which
that's like not my world. So it was kind of
like looking around, I'm like I don't know where to start,
Like this is I'm not you know, never had to
do this, but I saw on social media someone posting
like a class and it was through New Mexico Community Capital.
(04:43):
New Mexico Community Capital supports entrepreneurs with education, mentorship, and resources.
They help grow indigenous led businesses and work with other
groups to make that happen. That's actually how I met Aquila.
She was one of the mentors in the program. And
then I think the American Indian Business Enterprise and probably
(05:03):
like MSU, and so they were like, we can help you.
We can help people, you know, yeah, people starting business.
And I was like, is this for real? Like that's interesting.
So I clicked on it. I feeled at the application.
I swear probably like not even very long. I got
an email being like, oh, we chose you, and I'm like, oh, okay, wow,
you know, and at the end of the classes they
wanted us to pitch and then oh yeah yeah, and
then they would give us some funding to help us
(05:26):
with where we are in our business. Some people already
had LLCs. Some people didn't like myself during the classes
they were teaching us like how did get an LLC?
Or like how did your tax is? Like all this
stuff that is not I mean, who knows that not
somebody like me? Yeah? So yeah. The cool thing about
New Mexico community capitals are so many entrepreneurs. There's like
a lot of people in fashion, a lot of people
(05:47):
and like food, like anything that could be a business,
they're there. So it was kind of really cool to
meet all those people that are these spaces that I'm like, wow,
that's so cool, you know, so much inspiration, and they've
been nothing but supportive. And everybody I've met through there
has been so talented and just like helpful.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
There's so many amazing people within the broader I guess,
like you would call it the indigenous entrepreneurial ecosystem is
amazing to be part of.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Yeah. Yeah, and the Native people are just innately creative.
We're always creating something art I guess, but everybody does it. Yeah,
it's just like a normal thing. Like you don't just
do one thing. You'd probably do like three things or
four things or more. So you had already gone through
this probably or you've gone through the pitch I saw,
so you were actually teaching what I was in. So
you were one of the instructors. So then we had
(06:35):
a like a little one on one together. Yeah, yeah,
and that was it was really fun to actually talk
to you one on one and tell you what it
was up to. And you actually helped name the show.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Oh well, yeah, I remember the time you were going
through you were undecided on the name of the show.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Yeah, And your perspective was from a tech world or
like someone who's on the internet, you know, marketing and stuff.
You were like, well, it's kind of long, you know,
the way you have it now, like we can shorten
it this way. And you gave me a bunch of
examples of what looks better and like the balance of
it and everything, all these things that nobody thinks about.
That was so insightful and just very helpful. And I
(07:16):
was like, oh my god, this girl is like so
freaking smart. You're so sweet.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Oh my gosh, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Thank you. Yeah, So I hope you remember that. I
do for sure, Okay.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
I love the community at New Mexico Community Capital, and
I was around twenty twenty that they were doing one
of the bmes, the course that you went through. I
wanted to be in the course because I was trying
to take my business idea more serious. And so you
had to go through AIB to sign up, right because
they were in partnership to host the Business Marketing Essentials courses.
So I did that and went through the same process
(07:47):
as you got in. And then a couple years later
and AIB American Business Enterprise, they were hosting their annual
conference in Albuquerque, I joined the pitch competition, and yeah,
it was really cool, cool experience. My pitch idea was
or is for my current business, Glittering World Girl.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Oh got it.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
And so with Glittering worll giral, it's creating media to
revitalize language and culture revitalization through XR technology and like
video production. How I kind of got more involved with
the course that you had to take in with NMCC.
That was through just my passion for entrepreneurship, my love
for entrepreneurship and being a mentor and trying to just
(08:33):
mentor and get familiar with the ecosystem more and marketing.
So a couple of years ago, I was getting like
really into marketing and like helping native organizations increase their
engagement by like three hundred to five hundred percent. And
then I just like really started wanting to focus on
my business more. So that's kind of what I've been
doing for the past couple of years. It's funny because
(08:56):
I was just thinking, like last night, I was like,
oh my gosh, I still need to like, you know,
work on my marketing for a Glittering World Girl like more.
You know, It's like as founders there's so many things
to do. Last year I was doing pretty good like
posting kind of often, but now definitely coming up with
a strategy to just get content and to post it
at least a weekly. I know some businesses are like
(09:18):
three times a week or whatever, but I feel like, honestly,
like success is not measured by that. Especially my approach
to entrepreneurship is like really flow flow based, really like
taking the time to rest as well.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Yeah, yeah, that's what would I would struggle with. I'm
either going hardcore and like super tired and then have
to go to a cave for like months, So the
balance is very important otherwise to just crash out. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Yeah, so that's kind of like my approach is just
there's a lot of relaxing involved. Perfect, And yeah, it's
just a whole different like mindset shift, you know, like
with modern society or like traditional American societies, go go
go work, work, work, work, You're back off, you know totally.
But I've been like, you know, restructuring that paradigmond within
(10:05):
my mind, and it's been working so far.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
That's good. Yeah, yeah, I would love to do that.
I wish you could like harness when you're motivated and
the waves coming, but you could it's almost like you
can never predict when that's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
It's crazy.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Yeah, I think that sometimes it's like you just got
to keep going and just at least take care of yourself,
you know, each maybe have electrolytes.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
I've been trying to be nicer to myself. I realize
that I'm not that nice to myself, even if I
did just get up and like go to work, which
I have a job, and fed myself a mill, and
did I have dogs and I did all that, and
then I'm still feeling guilty that I didn't do X
y Z. It's like I did a lot keeping myself alive,
and yeah, there's yeah, so I need to start being
a little more nicer and yeah, have the balance and stuff.
(10:54):
And even the producer I work with it I already
always gives me a hard time. He's like, you're so
hard on your life. You gets so mad that I
just can't take compliments or and he's just like, oh
it was fine, it was good, Like why are yeah? Yeah,
And it gets embarrassing. It's like, okay, I can't be this.
I really got to like figure out.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
I think that a lot of people go through that.
For me, like, I've just been rewiring this whole approach
to entrepreneurship and success and like I said, letting it
be more of a flow based thing. Last fall, I
(11:30):
helped facilitate a fellowship at DNA College and I developed
a workshop series that I've been wanting to develop for
a couple of years. It was titled create a Life
that you Want, and just something about accessing the most
successful part of you through traditional teachings. A lot of
these days it's kind of like neuroscience is catching up
(11:53):
to these teachings that we had. So this upcoming fall
or whatever, working with NMCC hopefully to really launch this
workshop series for entrepreneurs. And it's more about like giving
yourself the credit, practicing self love and how that's like
really important when approaching entrepreneurship and just developing an abundance mindset.
(12:14):
And it's just about like really reframing like that wiring
within us that we have to keep like really work hard.
That's the only way to success, and like from my
experience with my entrepreneurial journey, that's not true. So yeah,
I just really want to share that.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
With the community. I think that that's important. I think
that also as Native people, this isn't this isn't how
we lived a long time ago, like this this is
kind of like a different world that we're adapting to.
That doesn't mean that we should change completely. I think
that like the basis of how we survive this far
need to keep happening, and that means like taking care
(12:49):
of yourself, taking care of where you are first, and
not being so greedy because that's kind of what people
think when they think of you know, selling stuff and whatever.
It's totally a different mindset and it's hard to like
make those two work in your mind. But I know
there's a way, and there's you're probably one of the
people leading the way to do that and having that
balance potentially.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Yeah, Like I think there's a definite like difference between
greed and wealth. Traditional American media is like and society
has been built off of greed, but that's not the
abundance that we were born into like as humans, like
this workshop series will go all the way into all
that into those different points.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
As it should.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
I think that, like with traditional forms of media, like
you know, Hollywood and like even history books and stuff.
It was a really biased media that a certain group
had the ownership of, you know, the kind of storytelling
that was told through those medias. With XR technology, it's
really cool because it's in emergent technology and no one
really owns the narrative told through XR technology right now,
(13:50):
and it's kind of like in emergent technology that is
going to really shape how the world finds entertainment. Not
only that, but like educational experiences, educational information. So right now,
I feel like it's so important to get all kinds
of different voices in the media, so many different communities
can be uplifted from it. That's one reason why I
(14:11):
really love XR technology and just kind of trying to
create the representation there for Indigenous voices and communities. There's
so much traction going on within that, and I feel
like within the space a lot like the community, the
XR community in general, they're really supportive of me as well,
so I'm thankful for.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
That, yes, and we're also lucky that you are getting
in this space, which seems to be like the beginning,
like it's not like it hasn't been around for very long,
which is great because we're often not the group that
gets in in the beginning. Being Navajo, like knowing your
history and knowing what your ancestors went through, that's why
you're so vital to the language and all the stuff
you're doing with that. I love that you bring all
(14:52):
that stuff in.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
I have like a workshop series coming up where I'll
be teaching on the Navajo reservation in Albuquerque, probably at
the New Mexico Community Capital Resilience Hub, and then at
UCLA as well, particularly directed towards indigenous communities to learn
about XR technology and having participants, like launched the first
(15:15):
augmented reality app just because I feel like there needs
to be more Indigenous people in this space. I went
to the MIT Reality hack this past year as well.
Last year, I'm like ninety nine point nine percent sure
that i was the only Native American person from the
fifty states that was in the whole hackathon of like
(15:36):
over four hundred hackers. You know, I wouldn't be surprised
if that's true. Yeah, probably is true. Like I feel
like it'll be definitely mutually beneficial. Like there's so much
talent on the res artistic talent, and so like AR
would just be like another tool in their toolbox, and
maybe even a source of income and a way to
become financially stable as well.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
So all of that's going.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
To kind of be packed into these workshops.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
But you're the perfect person who is in this space
the XR and all the tech stuff, because you're a
good communicator and also you have the drive for some
sort of entrepreneurship stuff. And also it helps that you're artistic.
I think you need to be artistic to be in
this space. I think when there is just people that
are very tech people but they're not creative and they
(16:22):
maybe don't want to like communicate, then we don't really
learn from those people. We just see, oh they did this,
they built this. But like, because you care about your
community and you're a teacher, I think that's perfect. And
then you have to be creative. I think all the
stuff I've seen you do, it's like you kind of
have to have a vision and that's creativity.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
That means a lot. Thank you so much, because I
have been trying to improve my communication skills not just
with like peers or like professional acquaintances or relationships, and
I actively started throwing myself out there and doing more
public speaking and wanting to perfect public speaking more and
(17:00):
even just like family members, like close relationships, being a
better communicator in general. But yeah, creativity, I feel like
I've just always been an artist at heart, and there's
a lot of stuff I still want to do, but
I feel like getting glittering a girl to where itself
sustaining and sustainable is kind of the mission and goal.
(17:21):
So yeah, that's just something that I've been tackling.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
That's cool. Yeah, well, I mean you're doing a lot
because just think about like the typical person probably isn't
going to be out there like teaching classes and helping
people name their podcasts and tell you know.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Yeah, Like I feel like mentorship, like in order to grow,
it's good to have a mentor. And I feel like
when I'm doing mentorship, one thing that I feel like
is really valuable about what I offer is that the
intent that I have for the person that I'm talking
to and like kind of already seeing them successful. And
that's kind of like about the energy behind the call,
(17:57):
The energy behind the entrepreneurship, I feel like is the
most important. Like I really hold everyone that I've met
through my mentoring sessions that that are knowing actually that
that helps manifest that for them. I guess I got
to meet with a couple people at dont College of
the students there when I was doing my fellowship there. Man,
(18:18):
like Donutt College has so many talented people. It's amazing,
Like I was, oh my gosh, you know, because I
grew up south of Gallup, I never really experienced the
Arizona side of the res. Yeah, and so it's amazing
and I can't wait to see where you know, everyone
goes from there that they have so much talent, and
having a mentoring one on one session with them was
really fun. And that's a kind of a passion that
(18:41):
I have. So I think that's the part of like,
you know, why I want to host these workshops is
because I want I want to see the best for people.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
I guess if people.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Weren't there to offer the opportunities of like the courses
I took and like the grants that I got, like,
I don't know where I would be, you know, So
I would love to just be that facilitator as well.
Native people are so brilliant. The net people are so brilliant,
Like we're amazing. I have other try lineage too, but
I mainly Dinet and I grew up diet. But yeah,
(19:10):
like so many smart people.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Over there, they grow up with different barriers and so
they are able to like solve those problems. So I'm
sure it's like living out there's there's so many barriers
and there's so many things you're constantly doing. They're taking
your livestock there. You know, there's it's a harder world.
So you're probably thinking a lot more and probably smarter
than us.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Yeah, Like the innovation is high innovation and like that,
like the whole thing of like you know, the ancestral
knowledge is like you know, the ancestral science and all that,
like you know, when you're grow up wired like that,
it's amazing. And like I was saying earlier, like modern
physics and stuff like that, they're finally catching up to
these concepts.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
So yeah, big ups to the nation. Yeah, I know,
like even like weaving, like my mom, my, grandma, everybody weaves,
and it's it's so much math. It's so much yeah,
like you have to really plan and I not everybody
could do it and make like a perfect rug if
there's some things and factors, and these women and men
are just doing it like not even a thought. Yeah,
(20:16):
I'd have to like write down stuff and count and yeah.
And that's so.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Cool that you bring that up because, like, you know,
weaving traditionally, like we got that from Spider Woman, right,
so it's been in our.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Blood, right.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
And the cool thing about that is, like during like
around the Industrial Revolution, or it could be some time
earlier after, there was a micro like you know, breadboards
and chips, those kind of like the chips that make
up the electronic commuter tips.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Yeah, exactly like.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
That kind of stuff. They actually had a plant near
ship Rock.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
I believe I heard about that.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Yeah, yeah, and they had like they hired all kinds
of like Navajo women too, because they couldn't find anyone
that was able to create these lines intricately. So they've
hired like Navajo women to create these like circuit boards
or the chips for this company. Now, if you see
some of the chips in the electrical chips or the
circuit boards that they're really like some of them are
(21:08):
patterns like of the Navajo rugs.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
It's crazy. And some rug weavers who work there are
weaving rugs that look like computer chips. I didn't know
that until I saw a rug that looked like a
computer chip and I was like, whoa, what what is this?
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Really was it a reference to that? Yeah it was
she had made it out out of memory from working there.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Yeah, I think it's at the herd. But god, that
was so cute. Yeah, it was a really huge run
and I'm like I see that. Yeah, it's cool. But
and then they were like, oh, yeah this happened. I'm like,
I had no idea that that.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Yeah, Like there's so many things that like we helped
shape that just like never got the credit that it
needed to. And now the truth is coming out.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
We are kind of like always been here. But also
Native people, Navjo people were not. It's kind of in
ue to not talk about ourselves or to talk amy
so al must do. I was always told, like, you know,
don't tell people what you're doing, like just yeah, you
always gotta like, you know, do your thing. I think
it's just you don't want to call like make anybody
(22:07):
feel bad, or you don't want to like I don't
know what it is, but yeah, I get that, but
I also feel like not that it could be healthy,
it couldn't be who knows exactly, but what I think
is it's got us here because I think that's how
we survived. Mmm. I think it's a survival tactic.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
I wonder about those type of things, like where those
things like survival tactics or something like or result of
colonization or something like. I feel like the intent behind it.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Is what matters.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Like are you boasting to like make people feel bad?
Because there are people who intentionally do that, But are
you like sharing what you're doing because you want to inspire,
you want to uplift them? Because for me, like personally,
like sharing my story on social media and stuff like that,
that has been the catalyst of me getting more opportunities
Otherwise if I'm just quiet and doing like you know,
(22:56):
not really posting anything or letting the world know what
it's going on over here, Like, how is anyone going
to know?
Speaker 1 (23:02):
So?
Speaker 2 (23:02):
I think there's a fine line between those different things.
And I attended this amazing webinar a couple years ago
held by Menace, a man who's a doctor, and he
was talking about like the protection way ceremony approach to
like social and emotional behavioral sciences and stuff like that.
Nice yeah, and he was like everyone's telling us you
(23:24):
you can't be talking about III and stuff like that.
But he was like, confidence is actually like a real
important thing. And then after I did more research about this,
like Dan Donna and the Holy People, confidence is one
of the things that they gave us. When I was
listening to this webinar, he was like, if you think
about it, like our ancestors had so much confidence that
they didn't speak English but they went to Washington, d C.
(23:48):
To advocate for their people. That's how much confidence they
had in themselves. You think about that and like, yeah,
I think like self confidence is so important because if
you don't believe in yourself, then who else is going
to believe you? You know, believe in you and energetically
there's a lot better things that are going to maybe
go your way if you're more confident. So I think
(24:10):
that that's so important. But not doing it in like
a toxic way for sure.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
I want to talk about all the stuff you've been
doing lately, Like I saw that you brought it up
about the MIT. Aquila recently participated in the MIT Reality Hackathon.
A hackathon is basically a fast paced event where you
team up to build creative tech projects. Your team one
for creating and what did you guys create like an
app or Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
So I was originally scheduled to present at the Reality
Hack and also I wanted to participate in the hackathon
as well. Being in New Mexico, I didn't really have
like a strong XR community. A little backstory. In twenty fourteen,
I got nominated for the New Mexico Women in Tech
(24:53):
Award and one of the ladies that was voting on
nominations she was like, I guess she was in the
XAR field. So I got connected with her. I ended
up getting the Emerging Leader Award for that opportunity. But yeah,
I ended up meeting this girl Billigana girl from Texas,
Lauren Cousin, and she has been developing AR for a
(25:13):
really long time. She's like been a client of Snapchat
for so long and like helping develop their not helping
but developing for their different iterations of their AR glasses.
She's been an amazing, amazing person, like ready to connect
you and introduce you to whoever you know what I mean.
Fast forward to Reality Hack this year, I was presenting.
(25:36):
I get a text message from her She's like, hey,
are you here at Reality Hack? And her and her
co founder Sam were also there and they were also
planning on participating in the hackathon. They were like, do
you want to join our team? We should put New
Mexico on the map. It was originally her idea to
(26:02):
build an augmented reality mobility AID because of a previous
experience with her mom having to use a walker all
of a sudden and just like how there was no
information on how to properly set a walker or how
the patient should be properly walking in a walker. So
she was like, I want to create an ar experience
around this. Do you want to go in? And I
was like kind of like, oh, do I want to
(26:23):
going on? And so I decided to join their team.
So it was me, Lauren and Sam and then two
girls from Los Angeles, Aya and Shade, and yeah, we
formed this amazing team. Lauren knows that I'm like really
strong and creating like Navajo language and culture stuff. The
crazy thing is like, before I even knew Sam and
Lauren were there, always thinking to myself, it would be
(26:46):
cool if I could find a team that would be
up to like create our hakathon project in the Navajo language.
You know, you don't know how many people are gonna
be down for that, you know what I mean. And
I was like, Oh, if it doesn't happen, I guess
it's cool whatever. I'm here to learn. I'm learn so much.
When I had a team formed, I was like, it
would be cool to create a version of this project
(27:06):
in Navajo and one in English. And she was like down,
She's like a ally, you know what I mean, She's amazing,
and she was like up for it. And she was like,
we should name the project something in your language. What's
what would be a good name for this? And I
just thought about yego, like yego, you know what I mean, Like,
you know, go hard. And it was perfect for the
(27:28):
concept of like, you know, people having to adjust to
lifestyle change of being in a walker cane, like keep.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Going and you know you're, yeah, you might be hurt
right now.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
But keep going. And so it was amazing we created
this whole experience, one in English, one in the Nebizade,
and immediately so many things fell into place for it,
like just thinking about like the medical injustices that happened
on Native American reservations, but if we kind of like
(27:57):
provide a solution to that by putting indigenous communities at
the forefront of tech innovation in the medtech field. How
would that help us leapfrog into futuristic like healthcare. The
project ended up taking first place for the Founder's Lab
and also first place for the whole hackathon.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
That's incredible.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
It was amazing, a great experience.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
How long do they give your so it was a
team of.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Five Yeah, everyone, they had to be a team.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Of five's And how long are you guys given to
do this? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (28:26):
So gosh, I can't remember right now, but it's like
about two and a half days or three days or
something very long. Yeah, just so it's like a hackathon,
so go really quick. Well, I joined a hackathon last
year at Stanford for Stanford XR I Mers the Bay,
and that one was the first time I got introduced
to the Snapchat Spectacles, which is the AR glasses. I'm
(28:48):
an ar girly. I love AR way more than VR.
So I was like, and I tried the AR glasses
on and they're amazing, and I was like, I want
to develop for this. I want to find a team
who wants.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Really tell us why you like them more than the VR?
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Yeah, Like I feel like VR is like whenever I
wear like you know, rig on the headset, it's like
a heavy Yeah, it's like heavy and bulky, and like
for me personally, I get like vertigo when I'm in
it and I'm trying to walk and everything's immersive. AR
is like you're mixing the physical and the digital together,
so you can still see the physical world, but there's
(29:22):
digital content on top of it. So I love that more.
And the AR glasses are way more lightweight. They're just
like glasses, you know. So I found a team at
Stanford XR and that when we built an immersive audio
book within like thirty six hours, Wow, and we took
first place there.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
So and then for MIT Reality Hack, we use snap
spectacles again and we took first with that.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
So it's it's nice. So the book would be seen
through the spectacles. Is that what that is?
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Yeah? So you would have a physical book actually, and
then there would be like either audio, so there's audio
that comes out of the side of the glasses, so
there would be audio that comes out of it that
could read the pages to you. But then there's like
digital like interactive three D models or two D assets
that are on top of the book that interact with
the book and stuff like that. Got to be working
(30:14):
on a den version of it with one of my
teammates this year.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
That's cool. And then for the walker, did you guys
literally have to have like a physical walker there that
you built?
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Lauren? I think she just bought one from like Walgreens
or CVS.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
Or then like rigged it to do what you all
needed it to do.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
So it was a walker just like a regular walker.
The person puts on the ar glasses, they calibrate.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
It with their phone.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
The phone acts as a sensor in their pocket and
then so that is able to I guess triangulate data
between the phone, the spectacles and the ground. And so
that detects your posture measurements. Yeah, it's detecting your posture
as you're walking in the walker, and so if you
start to slouch too much, there's a ping that comes
up and says you need to stand straight and continue walking.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
And I was the voice actor for it, and I
made it look super cute. You know it is in
the dnebaside part it was like, oh, I guess, don't know.
Since then Nasco, you're not you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Like it was so cute.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
So when you are calibrating it at the beginning and
you put the phone next to your side, just at
a drop of your arm, that helps you set the
walker to the correct height that it's supposed to be at,
okay for your height. It was amazing because one of
the judges, prominent judges there, he was like in a
cane and he was like, I was walking around yesterday
telling people that, like so many people reinjure themselves just
(31:36):
because their cane is not set to the correct height.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
So you don't love Yeah, everyone like he loved it
and like, yeah, so it was cool, very cool, very cool. So,
like the way it works is you're only giving a
limited time to do this, so some of you guys
are coding and stuff. Some of you and like you
would be doing the voices and trying to figure out
how to do'll match it. So it's really like new
people that you're trying to actually do group project with
(31:59):
and like on the fly that is so cool, but
like probably super hard.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Yeah, like it gets it could be really stressful for
some people, Like for the Stanford experience, like we really
didn't sleep the last night. We stayed up all night
working there at the campus for Reality Hack. Thankfully, like
my team members, they wanted to sleep, so we actually
got a lot of like we went to sleep and
we at least probably got six or seven hours of
sleep at night. Other teams were staying up all night
(32:24):
trying to figure stuff out. Wow, And like these are
very emergent technologies, so sometimes you're like really learning how
to do it on the fly, like there's no documentation
of it on how to do what, so yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Yeah, yeah, that's kind of the best way to learn sometimes.
And these are happening probably annually.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Yeah, they happen like through different like organizations or institutions,
educational institutions, like multiple times a year. Anytime I go
through something like that, I go totally for like educational purposes,
just so I could learn more. Probably networking is great too,
networking yea yeah. And so are there backers there that
actually that like some of these things that you all
come up with at these events, they actually get picked
(33:04):
up and turned into like a real product. Yeah, yeah,
there are. And there's a few investors that really wanted
to invest in Yego, but like there was a problem
there that you know, the snap spectacles that At that
point in time, we didn't know when they were going
to be made available to the public, so you can't
really make it a consumer based product. But now Snap
(33:26):
has announced that the Spectacles are going to be available
to the public in twenty twenty six, so that changes
a lot for all developers developing for Snap Spectacles. There
are investors there, there's vcs there. Yeah, it's really fun,
and honestly, I just love being in community with people
and building community within the XR space. My main focus
(33:49):
is Glittering World Girl, and like it's like Glittering Girl
has been picking up, so that's really exciting. I have
Glittering World Girl, and then now I have Yego, which
is going to might maybe be its own little organization,
and then my team from Stanford US continuing to work
on other stuff with Snap right now. So there's like
(34:10):
these other things that are outside of Glittering Wall Girl,
but also kind of benefit all each other too as well.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
I'm sure there's like all these things that you're thinking
about creating with those same tools, because I can see
that helping a lot of different things.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. There's all kinds of stuff projects that
I probably can't really talk about right now, but Snap
working with Snap directly to develop those projects and to
get them out. So for some of the workshops, I'm
definitely gonna try to have like some of the Snap
spectacles available so at least, like, you know, the youth
(34:44):
can try it on the Reds who attend these workshops.
That way they could experience some of the most primary
innovation form of augmented reality.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Okay, that's cool, So people want to play with them.
I don't know what price range are. They pretty expensive.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
It hasn't been disclosed yet because they haven't been made
available to public. Oh yeah, but I actually have some.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Yeah, well, next time we meet up, you got to
let me try him. It's so cool And I'm not
from that world, so it's good to know you you too.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
I just really have a passion for entrepreneurship. Like I've
never really had a real job, and I feel like
growing up and I think that a lot of people
in the Reds could feel this, is that there was
a lack of opportunity, a lack of like even culturally
relevant job openings. Yeah, yeah, I feel like entrepreneurship and
(35:36):
business creation is like a way to counteract that and
like you have to create the space, create like our
own ecosystem where we have thriving communities with our own
businesses and you know, our culture and language represented in that.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
So yeah, it's a huge.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Passion for mine.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
I can't wait to work with you again because you've
been a good mentor to me.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Oh no, yeah, like it's it's it's awesome, and I
think it's so cool what you're doing here. It's so
needed and it's so fun. And I just want to, like,
you know, see where your podcast goes and the different
opportunities that I've gotten from mentors has been a huge
catalyst for me. So I just want to like pass
that on.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Yeah, I agree. I think having you as a mentor,
Henry and a lot of other people I met through
there also even with iHeart, I have a Max as
a producer. He's such Yeah, it has been so helpful
into this world. I don't know either, and you as well.
So like these past few years, I've just had to
learn so much stuff, but it's been positive because I've
(36:37):
I just can't believe there's so many people that are
willing to help you and want you to succeed. I
feel overwhelmed by some people's generosities and it's like wow,
because I think sometimes you don't know that. So yeah,
I really think mentorship is important. That's why I wanted
to talk to you and other Native people, mostly Navajo
for now talking about all these amazing things they're doing.
(37:00):
And so I mean just because that's who I know,
and start closest to me and talking about all these
great things, like other people who listen to podcasts can
learn about all these other amazing things that everybody's doing,
like yourself. So I know you have a podcast right
with different people to people, yes, to other people. Okay,
can you tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
We have a podcast called Medicine to Society and it's
with an old friend, good time friend, Watermelon seven. He
goes by that name. He's from Eslado Pueblo and he
has other kind of ancestry as well, and then Natani
means who's from the Navajo.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
Nation as well.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
So yeah, it's been a really exciting journey. Definitely check
us out. We've been on a hiatus since the summer
of twenty twenty four, but we're going to be rebooting
here in a while and we have a bunch of
like really exciting episodes coming out, so just in the
editing phase and stuff like that, revamping our website and
so yeah, catch us there. We do have a few
(37:55):
if you go to our YouTube Medicine to Society podcast
uplifting voices in the indigenous space and the indigenous communities.
And I'm super thankful just brought on as a what
do you call it, a host, So it was super fun,
Like Watermelon water asked me to be part of it,
and I'm super you know, excited about it because it
(38:19):
puts me in a collaborative space instead of because a
lot of the times with my work, I'm kind of
like in my own little corner, you know. So puts
me in a collaborative space and it allows me to
be like a more present listener. And that's the part
my mob I was telling you, I'm trying to get
better at communication in all different types of forms, so
it helps me with that and like communicating with our guests,
(38:40):
like you know, scheduling and all this and that. So
it's exciting. I'm super thankful because for me personally, like
since COVID and all that, and like dealing with a
couple losses in my personal life, Like I've been kind
of like, you know, in my own corner, you know
what I mean. Through this opportunity for medicine to society.
(39:00):
It's nice because it like reintroduces me to community, you
know what I mean. So that's nice. So I have
Glitteringworldgirl dot com and it's my little website that I
launched this year. You could have reached me there. I'm
pretty much Glittering World Girl on all social media handles.
You could reach me there and we could connect and
follow each other's journey and if anything was just connect
(39:25):
and being community together.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Yeah, yeah, we're existing, will always be connected. Thank you
for having me here. By the way, Oh my gosh,
it's really cool. And I think it's super cool that
you're here in Gallop. I love coming here. I mean
I love being back on the res, So it's cool
that you're here in Gallop doing this. Akila is at
(39:49):
the forefront of XR tech, creating culturally centered opportunities and
paving the way for future innovators. Her passion for entrepreneurship
is not just impactful, it's immersive. This episode of Burn Stage,
Burn Bridges was written and produced by myself Nicole Garcia,
along with Max Williams and Dylan Fagan. Special thanks to
(40:09):
our guests Aquila Martinez, thank you for listening.
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