“Self-determination” and “sovereignty” are two terms Dickerson Digital takes seriously as it forges ahead with the launch and securing of one of Australia’s first Indigenous sovereign clouds powered by Microsoft.

According to Michael Dickerson, the First Nations CEO and founder of Dickerson Digital, the Indigenous-owned IT provider has been around for several years and is mostly self-funded.

In an interview with ARN, Dickerson said that, as a First Nations man himself, sitting on various leadership groups and services, and being involved in the IT industry for a number of years, he understands that “sovereignty is a key issue for First Nations people globally.”

“It’s one of the driving factors for First Nations in self-determination,” he said.

When Dickerson started thinking about combining technology with Indigenous issues — bridging the digital divide between First Nations people and non-First Nations people was one of its primary concerns.

“We came together and asked, how do we combine our skill sets and knowledge in delivering large-scale projects and secure infrastructure for various governments and services worldwide to create a unique and sovereign cloud build?” he said.

Secure Indigenous Sovereign Cloud

This came to fruition in February 2024 when Dickerson Digital collaborated with DQA, an Australian-owned service delivery provider, to launch a sovereign cloud on Microsoft. 

Powered by Microsoft Azure and integrated with Azure Orbital, the project is described as Australia’s first Indigenous sovereign cloud. At the time, the cloud was being rolled out and will soon be available to clients across Queensland and facilities across Australia. 

According to Dickerson, Secure Indigenous Sovereign Cloud has been designed to address an ongoing need for organisations that require low-latency, secure, and sovereign capabilities in Australia’s regional, edge, and far-edge locations.

“There’s often confusion between sovereignty and residency. Data residency is data that resides in the country to which it belongs. Still, it’s generally managed by foreign corporations or service corporations under other governments’ jurisdiction,” he said. “Data sovereignty is data that resides in the country and is responsible to the laws of that country’s lands.”

Most recently, Netskope and Dickerson announced that it would integrate its technology into the sovereign cloud infrastructure. This will allow customers to “securely connect to hosted solutions” within the sovereign cloud and provide an on-ramp to Microsoft Azure and other external services.

“The capability is on par with some of our competitors in the landscape,” said Dickerson. “However, we have a true purpose behind what we deliver. Our business supports the platforms and the infrastructure,” he said. “As we scale up, we’ll require more people to be part of that journey.

Delivering through a community-first lens

According to Dickerson, the IT provider competes on a capability basis, and because it has a greater capacity to drive economic development services, it isn’t just ticking boxes.

“We don’t see Indigenous people as a tick box,” he said. “We aim to close the gap through commercial engagement rather than government-led initiatives. I’ve used the word decolonisation because that’s fundamentally why we’ve partnered with public and service cloud providers.”

Dickerson Digital aims to shift the conversation away from viewing projects like this as merely “a tick box delivered as a percentage of a contract.”  The IT service provider believes these projects can be used to engage in a truly meaningful way and deliver community outcomes without making them the sole focus of the IT service contract.

Dickerson believes it is vital to empower Indigenous communities to make their own decisions about how their data is stored, managed and controlled. It’s also one of the key driving factors that changed how data sovereignty is viewed.

“I think empowerment is the first stage,” he said. “Í hope to see a lot more organisations come through and deliver those outcomes, and if we can create a pathway or service to do that, then that’s fantastic. I think it’s also a way for governments on platforms and services to engage in meaningful rather than tokenistic engagement.”

The value of data for First Nations

Dickerson has also worked for the past two years with Indigenous-owned technology companies like Tiaki in New Zealand (Aotearoa) to create security processes to enhance their data and data management.

“There’s a fundamental pathway to understanding how data is so important. As the new oil, data is one of the most precious resources we have as individuals,” he said. Not many communities have had that exposure to it, so partnering with Netskope and Microsoft allows us to share those skill sets and knowledge with others who are beginning their journey.”

However, Dickerson notes that, fundamentally, each community is unique and distinct. Therefore, every First Nation group across Australia has a unique engagement approach.

“When we interact with these communities, we respect and embrace their distinctiveness, including their standards and traditions, rather than applying a one-size-fits-all approach,” he said. “Culturally sensitive engagement is crucial in ensuring we effectively honour and integrate these diverse traditions and values into our projects and services.

This approach allows Dickerson Digital to deliver respectful solutions tailored to each community’s needs and cultural context.

While there is a foundational framework for an Indigenous cloud, the way we involve each community in the process is customised to their specific cultural identity and engagement preferences,” he said.

Enabling Indigenous communities with an understanding of data sovereignty can help them cross that digital divide.

“The modern economy is mostly digital connectivity, which is a classic example of how that has to be fixed,” said Dickerson. “First access to skill trainers, business leaders that they can look up to or see that they’ve been able to build themselves through a process. I [always] come back to the thought that you can only be what you can see.”

Genuine community involvement

He emphasised that regional locations or data centres can be pivotal hubs of commerce within their communities.

“By strategically deploying these centres and actively engaging with First Nations, the focus shifts from mere implementation to genuine involvement in job creation and career pathways,” he said. “Addressing connectivity issues, particularly in Indigenous communities, is crucial for accessing essential services like parental data and school information.

With reliable mobile data, accessing these critical services becomes more accessible. The solution lies in extending and integrating services from regional hubs into core platform frameworks.”

While change should be driven from within the community and not by outside influencers, it is also important to establish capabilities to build skill sets that remain in-country.

“We are focused on creating jobs and career pathways. Connectivity is crucial, especially concerning issues in Indigenous communities regarding access to data for parents and information on their children,” said Dickerson. “In schools, access to critical services is limited without data on mobile phones. Addressing these issues requires extended services from regional hubs integrated into core platforms.”

Also taken into consideration is the environmental impact, which is taken into top consideration.

“We are fundamentally looking at everything from building power,” said Dickerson. “Water is a classic example that needs to be maintained in data centres, especially since we live in a dry continent and cooling is another issue.”

According to Dickerson, these data centres are being designed from the ground up.

“With the support from some of the team at Microsoft on how to design to certain standards rather than just doing our own research,” he said. “Our partnerships are more than just technological engagements; they assist us in understanding modern movements towards sustainable data centres and projects like cloud infrastructure. This also allows us to work with the community on how to support the upkeep of traditional lands and services.”

Bridging cultures

According to Dickerson, creating facilities in regional communities, with organisations like Underwood Innovation Lab, “will allow technology talent to reside within and serve their communities while bridging the oldest living culture with the newest technology stacks”.

As Dickerson continues on its path towards creating sovereign data for Indigenous communities and empowering them in the digital economy, it will continue to work with businesses in Australia, New Zealand, and other Pacific nations. Dickerson is also considering doing the same for other Indigenous groups across continents.

“We’re working with different providers that haven’t been finalised at the moment,” said Dickerson. “We’re also partnering with other First Nations groups globally on how to create this capability or pass this knowledge on as a capability and capacity to uplift them as well.”