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Thursday, July 30, 2026

A Remote Indigenous Community Built One of Canada’s Fastest Fiber Networks

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/an-aerial-photo-shows-utility-lines-stretching-across-a-river.jpg?id=67106655&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C187%2C0%2C188"/> In February 2024, a young man lay somewhere on the frozen shore of James Bay, Canada, surrounded by snow and darkness, succumbing to hypothermia. When he failed to get home on time, his frantic mother sent a Facebook message to Elizabeth Kataquapit, then chief of the indigenous community <a href="https://www.facebook.com/fortalbany/" target="_blank">Fort Albany First Nation</a> in northeastern Ontario. Kataquapit used Facebook to alert the community’s <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/202000479846725/" target="_blank">search-and-rescue squad</a>, who jumped onto their snowmobiles and drove into the night. Before dawn, they returned with the dazed man, who told rescuers he’d given up until wolves nudged his hypothermic body. “The wolves told him to wake up,” Kataquapit says. “I really believe they saved his life.”<div class="rm-embed embed-media"><iframe height="110px" id="noa-web-audio-player" src="https://embed-player.newsoveraudio.com/v4?key=q5m19e&id=https://spectrum.ieee.org/indigenous-fiber-network?draft=1&bgColor=F5F5F5&color=1b1b1c&playColor=1b1b1c&progressBgColor=F5F5F5&progressBorderColor=bdbbbb&titleColor=1b1b1c&timeColor=1b1b1c&speedColor=1b1b1c&noaLinkColor=556B7D&noaLinkHighlightColor=FF4B00&feedbackButton=true" style="border: none" width="100%"></iframe></div>A fiber-optic network also played a key role.Not long before the young man’s mishap, the indigenous-owned <a href="https://www.wjbtnetwork.com/" target="_blank">Western James Bay Telecom Network</a> (WJBTN) had built its own fiber-to-the-home network in this remote Cree community, some 975 kilometers north of Toronto. Before the network, the rescue squad relied on a few handheld radios to pass information along. This time, a Facebook message to the full list of volunteers triggered the search. <img alt="An aerial photo shows a grid of residential streets surrounded by forest. " class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="3bb142b10c86b8f4714d789fc0f4afcc" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="4048d" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/an-aerial-photo-shows-a-grid-of-residential-streets-surrounded-by-forest.jpg?id=67101631&width=980"/> An aerial view shows the remote community of Fort Albany in northern Ontario.Gavin John Building Canada’s first fully Indigenous-owned-and-operated fiber-optic network was an uphill battle for <a href="https://www.internetsociety.org/author/nakogee/" target="_blank">Brian Nakogee</a>, WJBTN’s finance officer, who had to secure capital from agencies less familiar with the challenges of remote northern life. For the people of Fort Albany First Nation, accessing many vital supplies and services means traveling about 500 km to the regional city of Timmins. By land, the trip is possible for only a few weeks each winter, when the swampy tundra freezes hard enough to construct a temporary road. “The southern way of doing things is very different than how we here in remote areas piece things together,” says Nakogee.Telecommunications giants long saw little profit in serving the subarctic coast of James Bay. But even as satellite internet started to become available in remote communities, WJBTN staff saw the value in building and owning its own hard-wired internet service instead of relying on outside companies. Today, the nonprofit operates one of the fastest networks in Canada, while keeping both infrastructure ownership and revenue within the First Nations communities it serves.WJBTN is part of a broader movement among Indigenous and remote communities <a href="https://firstmile.ca/about/" target="_blank">seeking more control</a> over their telecommunications infrastructure. In the United States, <a href="https://communitynetworks.org/content/tribal-broadband-networks" target="_blank">30 tribes</a> now operate fiber-to-the-home networks, many launched during COVID. Canada has since created a dedicated <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/radio-television-telecommunications/news/2026/03/backgrounder-crtc-making-it-easier-to-connect-indigenous-communities-to-high-speed-internet-and-cellphone-services.html" target="_blank">Indigenous broadband</a> funding stream. And as more communities <a href="https://tribalbroadbandbootcamp.org/" target="_blank">pursue the expertise</a> and funding to build their own networks, WJBTN’s experience offers a blueprint for what locally owned connectivity can look like in some of the hardest places to serve.<h2>How a Power Line Became a Broadband Backbone</h2>While many towns in North America were connecting to optical fiber in the early 2000s, the subarctic communities were left out.The residents of Fort Albany saw the earliest sign of improvement in 2008. That’s when their locally owned power company, <a href="https://fivenations.ca/" target="_blank">Five Nations Energy Inc.</a> (FNEI), strung fiber-optic cable on the utility poles that were delivering electricity from the dusty railway town of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moosonee" target="_blank">Moosonee</a>, 135 km away across the peat bogs. On the shore of the Moose River, Moosonee is the last stop for Ontario’s telecommunications providers. Its only link to the province’s highways is a 5-hour train ride that shuttles passengers, freight, and vehicles through the Boreal forest. <img alt="Person in gray cap and maroon hoodie looking thoughtfully to the side" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4bda963cfb2cceedb3827bb3f6a37fac" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="264ca" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/person-in-gray-cap-and-maroon-hoodie-looking-thoughtfully-to-the-side.jpg?id=67101714&width=980"/> <img alt="A photo that shows the screen of a cellphone displaying the words \u201cFort Albany Search & Rescue.\u201d " class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="2e219d32f60f9bca3aa4e7f36bfb5fb9" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="f84cc" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-photo-that-shows-the-screen-of-a-cellphone-displaying-the-words-u201cfort-albany-search-rescue-u201d.jpg?id=67101713&width=980"/> Elizabeth Kataquapit [top], former chief of Fort Albany First Nation, says high-speed internet has transformed her community. Search & Rescue volunteers now coordinate emergency responses through a Facebook group [bottom]. Gavin John Soon after, regional Cree leaders formed WJBTN to provide high-speed telecommunications in Moosonee and the three Indigenous communities to the north. WJBTN would lease the fiber-optic backbone from the power company, with just 1 gigabit per second of total capacity for the entire population of about 6,000 people.But the new fiber backbone did not mean fast internet for residents. One of WJBTN’s first commercial clients was a telecom company called <a href="https://www.xittel.net/en/residential.aspx" target="_blank">Xittel</a>, which used microwave links and local access points to beam wireless internet to homes across each town. It wasn’t what subscribers were hoping for. This system frustrated users with delays, glitches, and strict data caps. Kataquapit calls it a “turtle.”Everybody complained about the wireless. Xittel advertised a 10 megabit-per-second connection, but speed tests consistently showed 3 Mb/s for both uploads and downloads. And customers paid dearly if they ever exceeded their data limit. “You were billed close to CA $7 per megabit,” Nakogee recalls.WJBTN’s dream had always been to connect everyone’s home to fiber optic and make it affordable. Without a technical team, roads, or any major funding, the company just had to figure out how.<h2>Designing a Fiber Network for the James Bay Coast</h2>When Nakogee joined WJBTN in 2014, the telecom company was still in its infancy. It was “a department huddled in the corner, trying to latch onto the services of FNEI,” he says.Nakogee was asked to prepare a proposal to deliver 40 Mb/s fiber connections to each of the roughly 1,000 homes and businesses spread across 300 km of the James Bay coast. Back then, WJBTN operated on revenue from its early commercial and institutional customers—including Xittel, local government offices, hospitals, air navigation facilities, and family service centers that were connected to the first few strands of fiber. To make a residential fiber network possible, WJBTN first had to build both revenue and trust within the communities it hoped to serve; it had to convince people that the small new organization would follow through on its plan. <img alt="A photo shows a man holding a laptop and sitting in an office in front of a large computer monitor. " class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="174fede9c8ae817a4d30e059335779ca" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="4e74d" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-photo-shows-a-man-holding-a-laptop-and-sitting-in-an-office-in-front-of-a-large-computer-monitor.jpg?id=67101840&width=980"/> WJBTN finance officer Brian Nakogee played a key role in financing and planning the community-owned fiber network. Gavin John Nakogee especially needed support from Moosonee and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attawapiskat_First_Nation" target="_blank">Attawapiskat</a>, the communities at the start and the end of the line. “They’re the bread that holds this sandwich together,” he says. Through years of diplomacy, the budget grew enough to support a business proposal for a fiber-to-the-home network. Together with engineer Dirk MacLeod, in 2015 Nakogee began hashing out the details of a bare-bones version of the system. The plan required both upgrading the network’s long-distance fiber backbone—<a href="https://www.ceragon.com/what-is-backhaul" target="_blank">known in telecom as the backhaul</a>—while also building the local infrastructure that would connect individual homes to the internet. <img alt="A man in an office points to something on a large piece of paper spread before him. " class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c41b88371b627a5cb03c129420f92a60" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="6e8fd" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-man-in-an-office-points-to-something-on-a-large-piece-of-paper-spread-before-him.jpg?id=67101809&width=980"/> Andrew MacLeod, WJBTN’s field project manager, reviews a map of the fiber network.Gavin JohnThe first step was upgrading the network’s backhaul using newer “<a href="https://www.ciena.com/insights/what-is/what-is-coherent-optics" target="_blank">coherent optics</a>” technology, which can transmit much larger amounts of data over long distances, explains Dirk’s brother, Andrew MacLeod, another network engineer, who joined as a consultant. Using equipment from telecom supplier <a href="https://www.nokia.com/optical-networks/" target="_blank">Infinera</a>, the new backhaul would deliver 100 Gb/s to distribution points in each town, with redundancy in case a fiber line failed.Next came the challenge of connecting individual homes. Rather than extend a direct line from the central office for every customer, the engineers designed the network around a telecom architecture called <a href="https://www.gpon.com/" target="_blank">GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Network)</a>, which reduced the fiber needed to connect each customer to the network. Fiber from the backbone would run to networking equipment at each town’s electrical substation, where passive optical splitters would distribute the connection among many households without requiring powered equipment at every junction. In remote communities where maintenance and repair are difficult, reducing the amount of active infrastructure was a necessity.The total estimated cost was <a href="https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/press-release/fibre-to-the-home-service-launched-in-fort-albany-first-nation-5392514" target="_blank">CA $4.7 million</a>, or CA $4,700 per household. By comparison, the <a href="https://fiberbroadband.org/" target="_blank">Fiber Broadband Association</a> estimates that urban fiber-to-home construction in the United States costs the equivalent of about <a href="https://dgtlinfra.com/fiber-optic-network-construction-process-costs/" target="_blank">CA $1,400 to CA $1,800 per household</a>—a stark contrast in expense. <img alt="A man in an orange baseball hat stands next to a boat with an outboard motor in front of a house. " class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a9a47f01f51af3ee6644d82bfd1fccb6" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="11d28" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-man-in-an-orange-baseball-hat-stands-next-to-a-boat-with-an-outboard-motor-in-front-of-a-house.jpg?id=67101804&width=980"/> Fort Albany resident Thomas Scott says high-speed internet has improved his work as a mental health counselor. Gavin John A radio broadcast in 2018 heralded the good news: The fiber-to-home construction project was a go. Fort Albany mental health counselor Thomas Scott says he “couldn’t wait.” People seeking guidance for addiction or grief typically called him on landlines, and it was hard to help them over the phone without seeing their faces. Businesses, too, rejoiced—including the Kataquapit family store, which relied on the phone system for transactions.<h2>Testing and Deploying a Remote Fiber Network</h2>Winning approval for the project was one thing; building it across hundreds of kilometers of remote subarctic terrain was another.Dirk MacLeod started with a schematic documenting the GPS position of every house, pole, and length of cable that would ultimately form the network. When WJBTN hired Montreal-based <a href="https://www.fonex.com/" target="_blank">Fonex Data Systems</a> to upgrade the backhaul, the detailed plan made it easy for contractor Tasso Varvarikos to design the deployment. Still, tuning the optical system to operate reliably across transmission lines stretching hundreds of kilometers required extra care. “Once you go up north, there’s no fiber store,” he says,To minimize surprises in the field, Varvarikos traveled to telecom supplier Infinera’s laboratory in Stockholm, where he and other engineers assembled and tested the network before shipping it to the installation site. The Stockholm lab gave the team access to testing tools and technical specialists who helped configure the system before deployment in the remote fly-in communities. Using Infinera’s simulation software, Varvarikos says he and his colleagues “kicked the crap out of it in the lab” until the network performed reliably. <img alt="A map of northern Ontario shows the location of Moosonee, Fort Albany, Kashechewan, and Attawapiskat along the western shore of James Bay. " class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="29f26f9821ed714d8817dea41fab4b5a" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="5ccaa" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-map-of-northern-ontario-shows-the-location-of-moosonee-fort-albany-kashechewan-and-attawapiskat-along-the-western-shore-of.png?id=67107300&width=980"/> The Western James Bay Telecom Network connects remote communities along the western shore of James Bay in northern Ontario.Chris PhilpotFinally, in the spring of 2019, it was time to pack up and head to the sites. First, more than two pallets’ worth of Infinera equipment were squeezed onto two charter aircraft in Timmins. Bush pilots, unfazed by the stringent logistics, made sure that one box reached Moosonee; the other one, Attawapiskat. Varvarikos says they packed extra fiber-optic transceivers, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patch_cable" target="_blank">patch cables</a>, tools, and “the kitchen sink and then an extra sink just in case.” By May, the team was ready to install the new backhaul—a months-long process that necessarily preceded household connections. Once the equipment was in place, the engineers tested the network to make sure the systems in each community could communicate reliably and that data moved correctly across the backbone.During the switchover to the new system, the MacLeod brothers worked from substations in different communities along the coast while Varvarikos coordinated from Fort Albany. Communicating over a spotty phone line, they started moving connections from the old network to the upgraded backhaul, carefully reconnecting cables and verifying that traffic still flowed correctly between communities. Within days, the anchor customers—including hospitals, schools, and air-navigation systems—were hardwired to a 100-Gb/s backbone.However, households were still relying on the slow legacy network. WJBTN’s next step was flying huge reels of fiber-optic cable into the remote communities at enormous cost. Nakogee recalls cutting predetermined lengths of cable, then repackaging it onto spools to load onto cargo aircraft. The backbone was finally in place; now WJBTN had to bring fiber to every home.<h2>Training a Local Fiber Crew</h2>Then, in a turn of events that rocked the communities, lead engineer Dirk MacLeod had a heart attack and died in July 2019. “My chest was ripped open,” Nakogee says. The grieving company shut down for the summer.WJBTN had intended to spend three summers training local crews from each community’s power company to maintain and manage the network. After MacLeod’s death, one line worker quietly took it upon himself to finish extending fiber to distribution points in Fort Albany. The team made a plan to begin connecting homes the following spring. <img alt="A photo shows the streets of a town with utility poles carrying many wires. " class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="729b1891208338dd9c36c10cd569ea76" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="ef672" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-photo-shows-the-streets-of-a-town-with-utility-poles-carrying-many-wires.jpg?id=67101770&width=980"/> Utility poles carry power and fiber-optic lines through Fort Albany First Nation.Gavin JohnThen <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/tag/covid-19" target="_blank">COVID</a> hit. Fearful and with limited medical facilities, the communities closed themselves off. Nobody was allowed in.“COVID really screwed things up,” says Andrew MacLeod. People were screaming for better internet, he recalls, but they wouldn’t let outsiders in. So instead of training local crews and building each town’s network simultaneously as planned, WJBTN made a tantalizing offer: The first community to allow MacLeod in would have its fiber-to-the-home network completed first. Fort Albany jumped on it.Peyton Reuben, a recent computer systems graduate in Fort Albany, was seeking a new job when his cousin mentioned that there was a “fiber guy” in town. Reuben’s coursework covered coding and how routers and ISPs communicate—a distant relative to Andrew MacLeod’s hands-on infrastructure work. <img alt="Person in glasses looks up, smiling, outside on a sunny day near small houses." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="6f60d29f1d933e5cc6b19b1cc9de5974" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="62e81" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/person-in-glasses-looks-up-smiling-outside-on-a-sunny-day-near-small-houses.jpg?id=67102051&width=980"/> <img alt="A photo shows a man standing on a street and looking up at a utility pole. " class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4aed2b4861b56293b9e7cd2a66fef110" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="b20c2" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-photo-shows-a-man-standing-on-a-street-and-looking-up-at-a-utility-pole.jpg?id=67102049&width=980"/> WJBTN network coordinator Peyton Reuben looks up at the overhead fiber network in Fort Albany [top]. A splice enclosure joins fiber-optic cables at a distribution point [bottom]. Gavin John“They were looking for helpers to splice fiber,” says Reuben, something he knew nothing about. Nonetheless, he started work the day he met MacLeod and got a crash course in building an <a href="https://www.ppc-online.com/blog/key-factors-to-consider-with-aerial-fiber-deployments" target="_blank">aerial fiber network</a>, running cables from utility poles into neighborhood connection boxes that ultimately served individual homes. The fun part was reaching every pole in every neighborhood in a town crisscrossed by tributaries of the Albany River. “We didn’t have a bucket truck, so we had to climb up the poles,” says Reuben. “It was quite the experience, going through thick brush and thigh-deep water.”The hard part was splicing the fiber—fusing together hair-thin glass strands that connected homes to the larger network. Inside each connection box, distribution fibers had to be joined to cables leading to individual houses, one strand at a time—around 150 in each box. Reuben’s first attempt “looked like a plate of spaghetti,” says MacLeod. More splicing waited back at the substation, where optical splitters connected neighborhood lines to the town’s central GPON equipment. “It took me four times as long as Andrew to complete a splice tray back then,” says Reuben. <img alt="A photo shows a bucket truck with a man in the bucket approaching the top of a utility pole. " class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a6e26d30d7e4c82d433a1b8ec94ae904" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="ffee6" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-photo-shows-a-bucket-truck-with-a-man-in-the-bucket-approaching-the-top-of-a-utility-pole.jpg?id=67101766&width=980"/> A worker installs a new fiber-optic line for the Western James Bay Telecom Network.Gavin JohnSlowly but surely, every building in Fort Albany saw a strand of fiber drop from overhead and come through a box drilled into the wall, ready to connect to a router. By springtime, aerial cables linked every house—and future building sites—to the substation. Reuben calls it “a spider web that goes everywhere across town.”Without much fanfare, on a night in April 2022, WJBTN <a href="https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/press-release/fibre-to-the-home-service-launched-in-fort-albany-first-nation-5392514" target="_blank">flipped the switch in Fort Albany</a>. The next morning, Kataquapit woke up to a different world. With 250 Mb/s download and 30 Mb/s upload speeds, she found herself just a click away from her children in faraway cities.<h2>Why Not Starlink?</h2>MacLeod and Reuben continued working up the coast, splicing cables and adding connection boxes. As COVID eased, they hired more local help, and the power company lent a hand with bucket trucks. “We were working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week,” says MacLeod. “Guys were sitting in the heat, in bucket trucks, learning on the fly how to do splicing.” By late 2022, the network reached every home. <img alt="Hand adjusting fiber-optic cables in a labeled network equipment panel" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="bc6869baf62c2f0fbc1fd0d068d9fd86" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="4d079" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/hand-adjusting-fiber-optic-cables-in-a-labeled-network-equipment-panel.jpg?id=67102064&width=980"/> <img alt="Network server rack with labeled fiber optic cables and glowing status LEDs" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="af5ddba498dd226b1492f0b9bfba6ed2" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="4f928" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/network-server-rack-with-labeled-fiber-optic-cables-and-glowing-status-leds.jpg?id=67102061&width=980"/> <img alt="Weathered wooden cable reels with exposed black wire, yellow wall and person in background" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="54b6fded93ea343559c95bab634de409" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="a203f" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/weathered-wooden-cable-reels-with-exposed-black-wire-yellow-wall-and-person-in-background.jpg?id=67102053&width=980"/> Fiber-optic cables and networking equipment inside the Fort Albany substation distribute internet service throughout the community [top, middle]. Large spools of fiber-optic cable were flown in to connect homes [bottom]. Gavin JohnAround that time, <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/tag/starlink" target="_blank">Starlink</a>’s satellite internet service was becoming widely available. Many of WJBTN’s potential clients asked why they shouldn’t just purchase that instead of a fiber-optic connection that involved drilling into their homes. But speed tests comparing Xittel, Starlink, and the new WJBTN connections showed a major difference in latency: In applications like video calls, Xittel and Starlink’s round-trip signal delays became painfully obvious. Unlike satellite systems, fiber networks don’t need to send signals hundreds of kilometers into orbit and back. That gave WJBTN a significant performance advantage.MacLeod recalls a conversation with one line worker who wanted to turn to Starlink. “We told him our latency is so much better,” MacLeod says, explaining that ISPs measure performance by both bandwidth and latency. From Attawapiskat, a data packet traveling over WJBTN’s fiber network reached Toronto in 20 milliseconds. Comparable satellite connections took <a href="https://www.satelliteinternet.com/resources/what-is-internet-latency/" target="_blank">closer to 60 milliseconds</a>. And Xittel’s latency was much worse, at several hundred milliseconds. (Since then, WJBTN has reduced latency further, to about 12 milliseconds.)The team’s success has bolstered other Indigenous broadband companies. WJBTN representatives have shared their experiences at <a href="https://indigenousconnectivity.org/indigenous-connectivity-summit/" target="_blank">Indigenous Connectivity Summits</a> since 2017, and how-to workshops have sprung up <a href="https://indigenousconnectivity.org/icw/" target="_blank">across Canada</a> (and <a href="https://tribalbroadbandbootcamp.org/" target="_blank">the United States</a>). And Canada has since created a dedicated broadband funding stream for Indigenous communities. Within Fonex Data Systems, the company hired to do the backbone work, the WJBTN implementation is now considered the model for a successful installation in a remote location.Nakogee says ownership remains the key advantage. Unlike earlier telecom providers that leased infrastructure or delivered service wirelessly, WJBTN owns the backbone fiber, the right-of-way, and the poles carrying the network. That makes it far harder for outside telecom companies to displace the service. “That’s our secret weapon,” he says.Fundamentally, it’s about sovereignty. By controlling the infrastructure that carries internet traffic, the communities can govern and maintain the network according to their own priorities rather than the financial goals of distant providers.<h2>How Fiber Changed Daily Life</h2>Shortly after the fiber network was installed, <a href="https://www.timminstoday.com/local-news/fort-albany-elects-first-woman-chief-5901868" target="_blank">Elizabeth Kataquapit became chief</a> of Fort Albany First Nation. During her term as chief, she kicked the community’s digital era into full gear, encouraging individuals who couldn’t attend community meetings in person to join over Zoom.Counselor Scott now conducts grief and addiction sessions both in person and via video calls and can connect immediately in a crisis even if he’s away. And as a search-and-rescue volunteer, he responded to the Facebook message when the young man got lost in a winter snowstorm on James Bay. “If we were a half hour later, the person would have [been] gone,” says Scott.Broadband has also changed everyday life in quieter ways. Residents run small businesses from their homes. Telehealth links patients to specialists in southern cities. More people are working remotely and taking classes online. “Quality of life is so much better,” Reuben says.But the network has also brought to these northern communities the more isolating side of fast internet. Community members stream more movies and play more video games, and they meet face-to-face less frequently. Standing beside an enormous canoe in his front yard, Scott explains that while he’s grateful for Fort Albany’s new connection to the outside world, he’s equally intent on preserving close connections within the community. Today, he says, as he starts loading fishing nets into the canoe, “I’m taking the kids out after school to harvest whitefish.” Reference: https://ift.tt/qRaw34g

Wednesday, July 29, 2026

Mythos uncovers crypto weaknesses that went unknown for years

Anthropic is hailing the results of two cryptographic problems it threw at its Mythos AI security model that found weaknesses in the mathematical problems underpinning the robustness of two algorithms. At the moment, it’s hard to know how much of the company’s reporting is marketing hype, but the findings are still worth paying attention to because they could signal important advances in breaking cryptography that’s crucial to privacy and security. Before digging into the results, a few caveats. First, the outcomes are incremental. They don’t break any of the cryptosystems anyone relies on today. Instead, they reveal methods for moderately reducing the work that would be required to defeat the systems.<a href="https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/07/mythos-uncovers-crypto-weaknesses-that-went-unknown-for-years/">Read full article</a> <a href="https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/07/mythos-uncovers-crypto-weaknesses-that-went-unknown-for-years/#comments">Comments</a> Reference : https://ift.tt/1H4io2e

Siobahn Day Grady Wants Everyone to Be AI Literate

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/smiling-woman-in-nccu-eagles-jersey-stands-with-arms-crossed-in-front-of-red-mural.png?id=67527627&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C62%2C0%2C63"/> Artificial intelligence is reshaping the skills employers expect from new graduates. In response, universities are scrambling to launch new courses, research centers, and industry partnerships that prepare students for today’s workforce. But building a cutting-edge AI curriculum demands funding and access to industry networks, resources that remain unevenly distributed across higher education. At North Carolina Central University, <a href="https://www.nccu.edu/employee/sday" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Siobahn Day Grady</a> is trying to change that equation.In January 2025, Grady, an associate professor in the <a href="https://www.nccu.edu/slis" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">NCCU School of Library and Information Sciences</a>, launched the first AI research institute at a historically Black college or university, or HBCU. The <a href="https://www.nccu.edu/research/institutes-and-special-facilities/iaier" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Research</a> (IAIER) aims in part to help students and faculty across the university develop the skills needed to navigate a labor market increasingly transformed by AI.“There used to be a time where people could say, ‘I don’t do tech,’ or ‘That’s not for me,’” Grady says. “But we’re in a stage now where you do need digital skills. Now it’s evolving into AI literacy.” The approach reflects a broader shift in how many universities are thinking about AI education. AI skills are no longer confined to computer science and engineering departments—and at NCCU, they can’t be. The university does not yet have a dedicated computer science program, though it is developing one alongside a new AI minor. The challenge of providing these resources is especially acute for historically Black institutions. Although HBCUs account for roughly 3 percent of four-year institutions in the United States, they receive less than 1 percent of federal research and development funding, according to a <a href="https://tmcf.org/new-data-reveals-disproportionately-low-rd-funds-awarded-to-hbcus/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">2025 report </a>by the Center for American Progress and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund. The same report found that 17 of the 43 federal agencies that distributed research funding to universities in 2023 awarded no funding to HBCUs. Yet less than two years since its launch, IAIER has emerged as a powerhouse for interdisciplinary AI education. Backed by a US $1 million <a href="https://google.org" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Google.org</a> grant, the institute has engaged more than 2,800 students, faculty members, and community residents through research initiatives and training. Now the challenge is sustaining that momentum to keep up with rising demand.“We have a guiding principle that we lead with on our campus,” Grady says. “AI is for everyone.”<h2>Why one research group wasn’t enough</h2>The mission to expand AI literacy grew out of Grady’s lifelong curiosity about technology. “I was born during a time [when] the internet did not exist,” she says. “Ever since the internet came to be, it’s changed our entire world.” Grady was particularly drawn to the questions tech raises about privacy, identity, and human behavior. After receiving her bachelor’s degree in computer science and master’s degrees in AI and information science, Grady pursued a Ph.D. in computer science at the <a href="https://www.ncat.edu/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University</a> to dig into those questions. Her <a href="https://www.proquest.com/openview/2d76e0ff1f4fadb5fe010f0d5fca858f/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">dissertation</a> focused on authorship attribution in social media, using machine learning and natural-language processing to determine whether a person’s writing style could reveal their identity. “I’ve always been intrigued by how much data we give for free,” Grady says. That work introduced her to the power of AI systems to detect patterns hidden within large datasets. “We have a guiding principle that we lead with on our campus: AI is for everyone.”After completing her doctorate in 2018, Grady joined NCCU as an assistant professor in the School of Library and Information Sciences. There, she researched machine learning applications for health care and autonomous vehicles. In 2020, she launched the Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Research at NCCU, giving students opportunities to participate in hands-on projects and explore AI beyond the classroom.Then in 2024, an opportunity emerged to apply for a Google grant, and Grady began thinking beyond a single research group. Rather than building another faculty lab, she envisioned an institute that could serve the entire university during the AI boom. “We wanted to capitalize on the moment and make sure we don’t get left behind,” Grady says. Since receiving the $1 million grant, Grady and her team have built a university-wide AI initiative, launched new academic programs, organized conferences, secured external support, and created research opportunities.“We’ve really operated like a startup,” Grady says. <h2>AI beyond computer science</h2>As part of the institute’s goal of integrating AI education across disciplines, all NCCU freshmen are <a href="https://www.nccu.edu/news/nccu-among-first-hbcus-require-ai-training-freshmen" target="_blank">required to complete an introductory AI course</a>, designed in partnership with <a href="https://skillsbuild.org/" target="_blank">IBM</a>, to build foundational prompting skills. The institute has also worked with faculty development teams to help instructors integrate AI into their teaching.Research is another part of the strategy. IAIER has awarded seed grants of up to $10,000 to faculty members exploring AI applications across departments. <a href="https://www.nccu.edu/research/institutes-and-special-facilities/iaier/seed-grant-program/2025-2026-iaier-seed-grant-funding-awardees" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The first cohort</a> funded 11 projects spanning social work, digital archiving, health care, and information science. One project, for instance, is creating an AI lab where students in social work courses can practice client interactions through simulations. “It’s really interesting to see the lens that our researchers take in trying to solve complex problems and also bring our students along with them,” Grady says.The institute’s growth has been fueled by a mix of workforce training, interdisciplinary research, and, especially important, industry engagement. “Industry is where the advancements are really moving at that very fast rate,” Grady says, “not necessarily higher ed.”To bridge that gap, IAIER hosts events that connect students and faculty with researchers, employers, and technology leaders. It has held sessions with companies including Deloitte, FICO, and Anthropic. Partnerships with Google and IBM let students gain recognized certificates and credentials. And last year, the institute hosted the first <a href="https://academy.openai.com/public/events/the-iaier-at-nccu-x-openai-academy-summit-hbcus-leading-the-future-ijyucx0rve?agenda_day=68484fd45114dd90aa5aa378&agenda_track=68484fd55114dd90aa5aa38d&agenda_stage=68484fd45114dd90aa5aa37e&agenda_filter_view=stage&agenda_view=list" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenAI Academy Summit</a> held at an HBCU, drawing 444 participants from more than 40 institutions. <h2>Sustaining the vision</h2>The institute’s rapid growth has created a new challenge: continuing its momentum.“Funding right now is the biggest barrier for [IAIER] to remain sustainable,” Grady says. As interest in the institute continues to grow, demand for its programs is beginning to outpace its capacity. “People just want more,” she says.The bottleneck reflects a broader tension across higher education. <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/state-of-ai-index-2026" target="_blank">AI is evolving quickly</a>, while developing new academic programs, training faculty, and building research capacity takes time. The uncertainty is compounded by a shifting political landscape. As a whole, U.S. universities are grappling with proposed <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/harvard-funding-cuts" target="_blank">cuts to federal research spending</a> and increased scrutiny of diversity-focused initiatives under the Trump administration. However, in September 2025, the administration also announced a $500 million one-time investment in HBCUs and higher-ed institutions chartered by Native American tribal governments. Meanwhile, NCCU has continued to attract new investment. Last September, in a collaboration with Howard University and two other institutions, IAIER <a href="https://nsf.elsevierpure.com/en/projects/research-coordination-network-on-assessing-and-predicting-jobs-ou-2/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">received a nearly $500,000 award</a> through a <a href="https://www.aijobsrcn.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">National Science Foundation research coordination network program</a> to help define emerging AI jobs, identify in-demand skills, and inform future credentials and curricula. That work will continue this fall when IAIER opens its first dedicated physical space on campus, Grady says.Over the next several years, Grady plans to expand academic programming, launch the university’s computer science major and its AI minor, increase faculty research opportunities, and integrate AI more deeply across campus operations. She also plans to deepen the institute’s collaborations with industry partners.Beyond program expansion, Grady sees the institute’s long-term success as linked to building a model other universities can adapt. “We’re creating a framework that can help not only HBCUs,” she says, “but also help any university looking to do similar work.” Reference: https://ift.tt/Lyl2ncr

AI Hyper-Scaling Digital Inequality

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-painting-with-overlapping-concentric-shapes-in-blue-and-yellow.jpg?id=67163886&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C62%2C0%2C63"/> Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming part of everyday infrastructure–in some places. It helps write emails and software code, filters job applications, powers recommendation systems, and is increasingly being integrated into education, healthcare, finance, and public administration. Industry leaders talk about “AI for everyone,” while governments rush to publish national AI strategies and build sovereign compute.Yet over the past decade, working on digital inclusion and digital literacy projects in regions from Europe to sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-30808-6" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">I’ve seen the same pattern repeat</a>: each new wave of “transformative” technology lands on a landscape already stratified by connectivity, skills, and institutional capacity. The current AI wave is no exception. If anything, it amplifies those underlying fractures.Still, some countries areexploring ways of participating in AI development without directly replicating the frontier model race dominated by the United States and China. Recent developments in South Africa and Indonesia illustrate both the possibilities and challenges. The stakes extend far beyond access to AI. Countries that remain primarily consumers rather than creators of AI risk losing opportunities to build local innovation ecosystems, strengthen public-sector capacity, and ensure that their own languages, cultures, and societal priorities are reflected in AI systems. In this sense, the AI divide is also becoming a divide in economic opportunity and technological influence.<h2>AI compute is clustering in a few places</h2>Recent analyses from Stanford University’s 2026 <a href="https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2026-ai-index-report" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">AI Index report</a> that the United States alone hosts more than 5,000 data centers, over ten times as many as any other single country. Because AI workloads are increasingly performed on cloud platforms rather than local infrastructure, this concentration of compute also becomes a concentration of dependency. According to <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/dptr2025-ai-foundations" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">World Bank data</a>, in 2023 the United States accounted for roughly 87 percent of global exports of cloud computing and data storage services.For most countries, this means that <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/europe-tech-sovereignty-package" target="_self">AI development is not just technologically, but commercially and geopolitically outsourced</a> and out of their control. The result is an AI ecosystem where a small number of states and firms host the computational engines that power globally deployed systems.Systems trained, standardized, and governed within a narrow set of institutional and linguistic environments may struggle to serve a genuinely global public.<h2>Skills and AI literacy are deeply stratified</h2>Even where connectivity and cloud access exist, not everyone is equally positioned to make use of them. Across OECD countries, only around <a href="https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/bridging-the-ai-skills-gap_66d0702e-en.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">40 percent of adults possess more than basic digital problem-solving skills</a>, while advanced computational and AI-related competences remain concentrated among highly educated workers and technology-intensive sectors.At the same time, governments are racing to integrate AI into education, often starting at higher levels of schooling. UNESCO <a href="https://www.unesco.org/ethics-ai/en/node/367" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">has reported</a> growing efforts worldwide to integrate AI into education, while support for AI literacy in primary and lower secondary education, as well as ethical training for educators, remains uneven. Those with robust schooling, advanced digital skills, and stable connectivity are best positioned to treat AI as a tool to extend their capabilities. <a href="https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/how-do-people-experience-new-technologies-and-generative-ai_49b8d10e-en/full-report.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Recent OECD survey data</a> show that participation in AI-related training remains strongly stratified by educational attainment: 36 percent of respondents with tertiary education reported undertaking AI-related training in the previous year, compared with just 18 percent of those with upper secondary education. Those on the wrongt side of the divide are more likely to experience AI as an opaque system acting upon them, from algorithmic welfare systems such as the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/05/welfare-surveillance-system-violates-human-rights-dutch-court-rules" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Dutch childcare benefits scandal</a> to AI-assisted hiring tools such as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/world/amazon-scraps-secret-ai-recruiting-tool-that-showed-bias-against-women-idUSKCN1MK08G/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Amazon’s discontinued AI recruiting system</a>, rather than as a technology they can actively interrogate or shape.<h2>Investment and governance: who gets a seat at the table?</h2>The core agenda-setting power often remains with a narrow set of industry actors and a small group of technologically advanced states. Most other countries remain in a perpetual catch-up posture, adapting imported models, standards, and templates for “trustworthy AI” to their own contexts, and may have limited local capacity to assess trade-offs or propose alternatives. In countries such as Indonesia and South Africa, communities generate data at massive scale yet still have little voice in how AI systems are designed, governed, or deployed. Their <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/indigenous-ai-voice-models-maori" target="_self">languages are underrepresented in training data</a>; their institutions are under-resourced in regulatory forums; their experiences rarely feature in benchmark datasets. For many countries in the Global South, participation in AI still occurs largely through adapting imported systems rather than shaping how those systems are designed, governed, or deployed. In South Africa, the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies released a <a href="https://www.techpolicy.press/south-africa-has-ai-leverage-its-draft-policy-leaves-it-unused/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">draft national AI policy</a> in April 2026, proposing new oversight institutions. The department withdrew the draft days later after a journalist discovered that at least six of its academic citations did not exist, apparently AI-generated hallucinations. The minister called it <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/south-africa-withdraws-ai-policy-due-fake-ai-generated-sources-2026-04-27/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">“an unacceptable lapse.</a>“ The episode sharply illustrates the gap between AI governance ambition and the institutional capacity needed to implement it, though the new AI panel the country has since constituted has a chance to use <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/south-africa-ai-policy" target="_self">South Africa’s unique leverage</a>.Indonesia presents a case of deliberate, if constrained, public-sector agency. The National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) which now leads AI implementation under the national strategy, has built <a href="https://restofworld.org/2024/indonesia-ai-tools-brin-government-agency/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">practical AI tools aimed at underserved communities</a> rather than frontier capabilities such as an app that uses satellite data and machine learning to help artisanal fishermen locate schools of fish, multilingual language models trained on Indonesian and local languages such as Javanese and Sundanese, and <a href="https://www.lightreading.com/ai-machine-learning/indonesia-s-upgraded-sahabat-ai-features-a-multilingual-chat-service" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">AI chatbots deployed in government services.</a> In August 2025, the Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs released <a href="https://govinsider.asia/intl-en/article/indonesia-unveils-national-ai-roadmap" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">a national AI roadmap</a> with a target of training 100,000 AI-skilled workers annually. The choice is not simply between “AI superpower” and “passive recipient.” Regional cooperation may also become increasingly important. In 2024 African ministers adopted a Continental AI Strategy and African Digital Compact and participants in the April 2025 <a href="https://dsup.substack.com/p/dsfsi-at-the-global-ai-summit-on" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Global AI Summit on Africa in Kigali</a> explored how regional coordination, <a href="https://www.news.uct.ac.za/news/audio/-article/2026-05-04-uct-researchers-develop-ai-model-for-11-south-african-languages" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">local-language AI models</a>, public universities, and <a href="https://scienceforafrica.foundation/media-center/open-research-proposals-adopted-east-africas-ai-declaration" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">open-source ecosystems</a> might <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/posts/2025/09/understanding-africas-ai-governance-landscape-insights-from-policy-practice-and-dialogue" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">reduce long-term dependence on externally developed AI systems</a>.<h2>A different way to think about the AI divide</h2>None of this means that people should slow or abandon AI, nor that cloud concentration or venture capital are inherently bad. Instead, when we talk about an “AI revolution,” we should also ask who can shape it and who can merely adapt to it.Digital divide debates once focused on devices and connectivity, later expanding toward skills and outcomes. But the current AI wave adds another layer: disparities in who can meaningfully participate in deciding what AI is for, which problems it is meant to solve, and which social priorities it ultimately serves.For engineers and policymakers, this raises difficult but necessary questions. Are they designing AI systems and infrastructures that broaden, rather than narrow, participation in shaping technological change? When governments roll out national AI strategies or integrate AI into public services, whose constraints, languages, and institutional realities are they including?Many observers frame the current AI moment as <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/state-of-ai-index-2026" target="_self">a competition</a>. But technological competition is never only about speed. It is also about who can influence the direction of change.AI is already spreading globally. The deeper question is whether the technologists and policymakers responsible for it will ensure that meaningful participation in shaping that future will spread as well. Reference: https://ift.tt/YfSMR3K

Tuesday, July 28, 2026

We now have a better understanding how OpenAI hacked into Hugging Face

Last week’s unprecedented security event in which two OpenAI security hacking models trespassed into the network of fellow AI company Hugging Face was enabled by exploiting one or more zero-day vulnerabilities in Artifactory, JFrog, the product’s developer, said Monday. In an incident mimicking a dystopian sci-fi novel, two OpenAI models broke out of the restricted environment meant to keep them from accessing the Internet during an internal test, the AI company <a href="https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/07/how-an-openai-benchmark-test-turned-into-a-real-world-cyberattack/">revealed last week</a>. The models went on to breach Hugging Face’s network and steal confidential information and credentials. OpenAI said its agent achieved the feat by exploiting a previously unknown vulnerability. The company called the event “unprecedented,” and outsiders largely agreed. <h2>Not the triumph made out to be</h2> OpenAI said the models exploited multiple attack vectors, including stolen credentials and zero-days, to gain remote code execution capabilities, but until now, the vulnerable software was unknown. JFrog’s Monday disclosure <a href="https://jfrog.com/blog/jfrog-and-openai-collaboration-on-zero-day-security-findings/">said</a> the product was a self-managed instance Artifactory, a repository management system that secures and streamlines customers’ software development operations. JFrog <a href="https://jfrog.com/solution-sheet/jfrog-artifactory/">says</a><a href="https://jfrog.com/blog/jfrog-and-openai-collaboration-on-zero-day-security-findings/"> Artifactory is used by more than 7,500 developer Teams, 80 percent of which work for Fortune 100 companies.</a><a href="https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/07/jfrog-tries-to-spin-openai-0-day-exploit-of-its-app-into-a-success-story/">Read full article</a> <a href="https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/07/jfrog-tries-to-spin-openai-0-day-exploit-of-its-app-into-a-success-story/#comments">Comments</a> Reference : https://ift.tt/Z6nNPjC

Laboratoria’s Mariana Costa Empowers Women in Tech

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/smiling-students-sit-together-at-a-classroom-table-talking-and-working-on-devices.jpg?id=67546488&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C156%2C0%2C157"/> In shaping her career, Peru native <a href="https://pe.linkedin.com/in/mariana-costa-checa-85876231" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Mariana Costa</a> has asked herself a question: What can I do to make life better for women in Latin America?The answer she landed on was training them for tech jobs.<h3>Mariana Costa</h3> Employer LaboratoriaTitle Co-founder and presidentAlma Maters London School of Economics; Columbia Such positions pay well and are in demand. And for too long, women across the region have been locked out of them, she says.Costa is president of <a href="https://laboratoria.la/en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Laboratoria</a>, a U.S.-registered nonprofit based in Miami that she helped found. Laboratoria has trained thousands of women in 11 Latin American countries for technology careers. She has built training centers in the countries and has placed graduates at major companies. Meanwhile, she has become one of the most recognized voices in the region on workforce equity and tech education for women.IEEE recognized her work with its <a href="https://corporate-awards.ieee.org/recipient/mariana-costa/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">President’s Award</a> this year for her “distinguished leadership and contributions to the betterment of society.” Recipients of the award are selected by the IEEE president with the consent of the IEEE Board of Directors.Costa says the recognition came as a surprise because she is not an engineer by training and had never considered becoming affiliated with IEEE.She was presented with the award at the <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/ieee-celebrates-honors-ceremony-2026" target="_self">IEEE Honors Ceremony</a> on 24 April in New York City.<h2>Peru: a country of contrasts</h2>Costa grew up in Lima, Peru’s capital, in a household with no connection to engineering or technology. Her mother was an art historian and professor, and her father was a lawyer. The family was financially comfortable and traveled abroad regularly. Costa attended well-resourced schools.That economic stability came with a reckoning, Costa says, in that she recognized early on that economic inequality had created separate societies inside Peru. Her parents, she says, made it “clear that my reality wasn’t the reality of most people in my country.”Lima is a microcosm of the country, she says. The divide in the capital city is visible: A kilometers-long concrete wall topped with barbed wire separates wealthier neighborhoods from shantytowns, where residents lack running water.Nationally, there are splits along ethnic and geographic lines. The highland and jungle regions remain home to mostly indigenous communities with limited educational access and a deep cultural distance from the Hispanic-dominated coast.The questions that stirred in her as a child never left, she says.“Why do I live in a country where so much depends on where you’re born?” she asked herself. “What does it mean to be Peruvian when individual realities are strikingly different?”Those questions followed her to the <a href="https://www.getsmarter.com/products/universities/the-london-school-of-economics-and-political-science?gclsrc=aw.ds&&&ef_id=c:524987838476_d:c_n:g_ti:kwd-296547014814_p:_k:london%20school%20of%20economics_m:e_a:126288917990&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=13137345744&gbraid=0AAAAADmgJP19b7OXwoaGcfVpuFd-lIRKm&gclid=Cj0KCQjwxvjRBhC2ARIsAI7KJa1xYb8TIS-QU7rdGmN50DDgNyqnsm5Wl90XqKbKb6XQBMVqjSLys0kaApqeEALw_wcB" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">London School of Economics</a>, where she studied international relations, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in 2007. She held onto the questions when she moved to Washington, D.C., where she spent the next four years working for the <a href="https://www.oas.org/en/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Organization of American States</a>, helping Latin American governments improve public services that fall under the heading of civil registration.“I said, ‘How can it be? The tech space has so many rich opportunities. Why aren’t any women here?’”The OAS <a href="https://www.oas.org/ext/en/democracy/PUICA" target="_blank">Universal Civil Identity Program in the Americas</a> provides technical support to national civil registry institutions, modernizing them to foster social inclusion and ensuring the right to civil identity for all people. Without civil identity, a person can’t access education, health care, legal employment, social services, or the right to vote. People without the classification don’t exist in the eyes of the government. They also can’t own property, get married officially, or pass citizenship rights to their children.Doing that work deepened her concern about the socioeconomic disparities in her homeland, she says. In search of practical solutions to those problems, she went to New York City in 2011 to further her education. She earned a master’s degree in public administration and development from <a href="https://www.columbia.edu/" target="_blank">Columbia</a> in 2013.Technology was not yet part of a solution. But Costa already had met someone who would change that.<h2>Falling in love with a programmer</h2>While working in Washington, Costa met <a href="https://www.wearefamilyfoundation.org/mentors-2020/herman-marin" target="_blank">Herman Marìn</a>, a software engineer who used digital tools in support of social causes. Because he was doing work she had never associated with programmers before, her assumptions about the field dissolved quickly.“I had a vision of [programmers doing] something not very social—strictly technical,” she says. “And my then-boyfriend, now husband, actually worked for different social movements that used technology to address social causes.”That realization cracked something open, she says: “I said, ‘Oh! Technology can actually be a tool to address some of the more stubborn problems in our societies.’”After earning her degree at Columbia, Costa returned to Lima with her husband. She had been abroad for nearly a decade and felt the pull of home.“The thought of not moving back to my country was something that tormented me a bit,” she says. “I really felt I had to move back, at least to try it out and contribute somehow.”<h2>What Latin America’s tech space lacked</h2>When Costa, her husband, and a friend from graduate school moved to Lima, they had modest savings and big ambitions. They wanted to build something that combined technology with social impact.They started with what they had: a small digital services agency, where they built websites for clients.The business grew, and they hired more employees. Their team expanded to a dozen software engineers. And as it did, Costa noticed three things.First, there weren’t enough trained developers to meet the demand. Second, many of their best hires did not have traditional computer science degrees. Some had never even finished college.“There was no other space where you could actually build an amazing career and get a well-paying job without a good degree from a good school,” she says. “The tech world was different. It was open in ways other fields weren’t.”Thirdly, she noticed that there were no women on the team. In the first six months, Costa says, they didn’t interview a single female developer.Her colleagues shrugged. It’s just how it is, they told her.Costa, the outsider, didn’t accept that.“I said, ‘How can that be? The tech space has so many rich opportunities,’” she says. “‘Why aren’t there any women?’”<h2>Building Laboratoria</h2>In 2014 she decided to launch Laboratoria. The business model was simple: Find talented women who hadn’t yet broken into tech, train them quickly on practical skills, and connect them with employers who needed developers.Laboratoria started offering a six-month immersive boot camp that covered Web development, UX design, <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10765410" target="_blank">data literacy</a>, strategic use of <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/topic/artificial-intelligence/" target="_self">artificial intelligence</a>, and soft-skills coaching such as interview prep and projecting confidence.Just as important for career success, Costa says, is a <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/ai-in-mathematics" target="_self">user-centered mindset</a>. She says Laboratoria’s program emphasizes the discipline of keeping the client’s needs in mind when designing the work.The teaching model has evolved beyond the boot-camp structure, but the organization still focuses on helping Latin American women develop tech skills and land quality jobs in the digital age. These days, the training, conducted via twice-weekly live <a href="https://www.zoom.com/" target="_blank">Zoom</a> sessions, lasts six weeks.“We needed developers ourselves,” she says of the company’s original logic. “I said, ‘Why don’t we run a program to train women—women who are incredibly talented but haven’t been given a chance yet—and help them gain the skills they need to get a great job as quickly as possible?’” <img alt="Three smiling adults pose together on a green sofa in a bright living room." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="93d5a0060abb2c81ccd29705eed2f253" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="2b804" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/three-smiling-adults-pose-together-on-a-green-sofa-in-a-bright-living-room.jpg?id=67546536&width=980"/> Mariana Costa [seated, right] poses with Laboratoria co-founder and CEO Gabriela Rocha and co-founder and chief product officer Rodulfo Prieto.Valeria MartensIt worked. Laboratoria expanded from Lima to Santiago, Chile; Mexico City; São Paulo, Brazil; and Bogotá, Colombia. The organization eventually incorporated as a nonprofit in the United States. Today its programs are held remotely in Latin America’s major job markets. So far, Laboratoria has opened the doors to tech careers for more than 3,500 women.Costa says she believes the most important skills Laboratoria’s graduates need aren’t purely technical. Close behind the growth mindset is self-confidence, she says.“Knowing who you are, valuing who you are, and learning to trust yourself and your capacities are indispensable traits,” she says.Networking, she adds, is the third pillar, and often the hardest to build for women without access to elite schools or flexible work schedules.“When you go out in the market,” she says, “you realize that having a network of people who trust you and know your work is such a valuable and critical asset.”<h2>IEEE: a new connection</h2>Costa’s introduction to IEEE came late—but it landed hard.She is not an IEEE member, so when she was contacted this year about receiving the President’s Award, she did her homework on the organization. What she found, she says, was a public charity whose reach and values aligned with her mission.“IEEE is about expanding access to opportunities in the world of technology,” she says. “And that’s also the core of what we do at Laboratoria.”She says she also sees IEEE as a living example of something her company preaches every day: “I was talking about the value of professional networks, and I think IEEE is such an amazing reference in that space. It exemplifies this belief that human connection—not only doing your work but also sharing and learning with others—is at the core of building thriving technology careers.”The engineering organization found her well after she launched her tech-related career. But it wasn’t too late. She says she intends to make the most of the connection. Reference: https://ift.tt/Zvp7QNo

Why NIST Researchers Spent 10 Years Measuring Gravity

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/smiling-man-in-glasses-overlaid-with-scientific-diagrams-and-colorful-geometric-shapes.png?id=67527858&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C102%2C0%2C103"/> Physicists have been trying to measure the fundamental gravitational constant for well over two centuries. The current <a href="https://physics.nist.gov/cgi-bin/cuu/Value?bg" target="_blank">accepted value of big G</a>, as it’s known, is 6.67430 × 10-11 cubic meters per kilogram per square second. It also has an uncertainty of ±0.00015 × 10-11 m3/(kg s2). As far as <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-kilogram-reinvented" target="_blank">constants of the universe</a> go, that’s very uncertain.<h3>Stephan Schlamminger</h3> <a href="https://www.nist.gov/people/stephan-schlamminger" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Schlamminger</a> is a physicist at the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology.Stephan Schlamminger recently completed a <a href="https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2026/04/nist-weighs-mystery-gravitational-constant" target="_blank">10-year effort</a> at the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology to replicate an earlier measurement of big G from the <a href="https://www.bipm.org/en/" target="_blank">International Bureau of Weights and Measures</a>, or BIPM (located near Paris) that’s notably higher than most measurements. He spoke with IEEE Spectrum about why it took so long to get a number—6.67387 x 10-11 m3/(kg s2)—and why it’s notably lower than the BIPM result, to the tune of <a href="https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2026/04/nist-weighs-mystery-gravitational-constant" target="_blank">0.0235 percent</a>.Why is it so difficult to measure big G?Stephan Schlamminger: Gravity is very weak. When you were a kid, you probably played with fridge magnets, and it was a force you could feel. But if you have two coffee cups, you can try all you want—you can’t feel the force between them. It is there, but it’s so, so weak.How did you attempt to measure big G? <img alt="Animated schematic of a rotating lab instrument with laser scanning cylindrical samples" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f11b53ee08734b7d1a840a0d90a57263" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="79fc0" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/animated-schematic-of-a-rotating-lab-instrument-with-laser-scanning-cylindrical-samples.gif?id=67527373&width=980"/> NIST used a torsion balance with a fourfold geometry. This animation shows an exaggerated version of how the outer green masses gravitationally attract the inner blue masses.S. Kelley/NISTSchlamminger: We used what’s called a torsion balance. The key idea in the torsion balance is that it decouples vertical gravity that you have from Earth from horizontal gravity, and that makes it sensitive to masses that are around the torsion balance but not the Earth below.Ours had a fourfold geometry. It has a very thin torsion strip, then four cylinders in a “plus sign” arrangement. All of this is inside a vacuum. Outside, we have four larger cylinders that gravitationally attract the four smaller masses to them. If I move the outer masses just a tiny little bit, the plus sign will rotate, and we measure that angle that it moves. That angle is proportional to the gravitational torque.Why try to replicate the BIPM value?Schlamminger: We could move the field forward. The measurements have been plagued with inconsistencies, so by redoing an experiment, we hoped to shed light on the inconsistencies.We did not find a smoking gun, so there’s no single reason why it’s different—our value versus their value. It’s still a big question mark.What was it like spending 10 years on this?Schlamminger: It’s a bit like herding cats. I’ve measured other fundamental constants, <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/measure-plancks-constant-and-define-the-kilogramwith-legos" target="_blank">like Planck’s constant</a>, and for most experiments, they have some sort of self-calibration built in. But with the gravitational constant, you have to keep track of every single mass that moves—where they are, how big they are, and weigh them.How does your result compare to the rest?Schlamminger: Our result is a little bit below the standard accepted literature value. I was disappointed because it doesn’t agree with the BIPM value, nor with the literature value. If there’s something wrong with the BIPM experiment, then the literature value—which includes that result—probably ought to come down a bit. But that is not for me to say. I think somebody else, independent, should figure out what the new mean value ought to be. Reference: https://ift.tt/phBbf1w