Our Name

As a collective of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, the founding members believed that it was important our name came from many different language groups to represent the diversity of the collective.

Maiam is from an Eastern Island language, Meriam Mer, of the Torres Strait. The Eastern Island Groups include Mer (Murray Island), Erub (Darnley Island) and Ugar (Stephen Island). Maiam means ‘welcome’ and it is often said twice in a tone that is welcoming.

nayri is the palawa kani word for ‘good’, as in a good and important thing.

Wingara was gifted by the D’harawal Traditional Descendants and Knowledge Holders Circle. Wingara is a deep and meaningful understanding achieved only after careful and considered neogtiation of varying pathways to learning.

The rough translation is welcome to good data/knowledges.

Our Logo

Drawn by a founding member the MnW logo uses cultural icongraphy in the context of data. It represents Indigenous men’s (bottom left) and women’s (bootom right) data through point estimataes and confidence intervals.

The logo represents how Indigenous data can be used by Indigenous peoples for our own purposes.

Our Story

The First Indigenous Data Sovereignty Workshop 2015

Sponsored by the Academy of Social Sciences Australia (ASSA) and organised by Professor John Taylor from Australia and Professor Tahu Kukutai from Aotearoa, the invited attendees were predominantly First Peoples academics from Australia, Aotearoa, the United States, and Canada1.

Informed by the ground-breaking 1990s work of the Canadian OCAP © (Ownership, Control, Access, Possession) principles,ix the workshop’s purpose was to inquire into data sovereignty for Indigenous peoples, current practice, and future needs.x

Our shared ambition was to create a paradigm shift in how Indigenous data were done in our own nation states. A key first step was the building of national networks. These networks were all led by Indigenous data practitioners and centrally concerned with advocating and promoting Indigenous data rights and interestsxii.

Formation of MnW 2017

The national network for Australia was founded by four First Peoples academics, Ray Lovett, Maggie Walter, Vanessa Lee, and Gawaian Bodkin-Andrews.

One of MnW’s earliest governance decisions was that we would not take grants from government and in doing so retain the independence to critique the state and its institutions on how they treat, or in some cases mistreat, Indigenous data.

Indigenous Data Sovereignty Summit 2018

MnW and the Australian Indigenous Governance Institute (AIGI) held an Indigenous Data Sovereignty Summit in Canberra on 20th June 2018. A brief on IDSov was prepared and circulated to a wide audience of First Peoples leaders, 50 of whom attended the Summit full-day meeting.xvii

The culmination of the 2018 Summit was the agreement on the definitions of key IDSov concepts and an agreed set of Australian IDSov principles. Outcomes were communicated in the Summit Communique.xviii

Indigenous Data Governance Summit 2023

The focus of MnW’s work evolved in the early 2020s, as we largely stopped presenting on ‘what is Indigenous Data Sovereignty?’ and started to focus ‘how can Indigenous Data Sovereignty be done?

To help support this work MnW members decided to facilitate another summit, this time on Indigenous Data Governance. At completion, the Summit issued an Indigenous Data Governance Communique that was endorsed by delegates. xxxvi

Global Indigenous Data Sovereignty (GIDSov) Conference 2025

More than 250 Indigenous peoples from Australia, Aotearoa (New Zealand), Canada, Kenya, Mexico, Norway, Peru, Philippines, Sweden, United States, and Vanuatu met on 1-2 April 2025, on Ngunnawal and Ngambri lands in Canberra, Australia. The Conference marked ten years since the first Indigenous Data Sovereignty workshop.

The presentations and discussions at the Indigenous GIDSov 2025 identified foundational actions for effective IDSOV and IDGOV at the nation state, First Nation and local levels for the future.

Next steps

After much discussion, the MnW leadership agreed that in order to progress the priorities of MnW would be incorporated. As a result, MnW was incorporated as Maiam nayri Wingara Pty Ltd on the 10th April 2025 and is regulated under the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). The inaugural Board was established in the final quarter of 2025.

Article in press: Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Data Governance: Wins and Lessons from Australia (2026).