Hawaiian Woman Builds Pidgin Tech

In honor of Indigenous People's Day today, I wanted to pass on some cool news about Kyra Kaya, a Native Hawaiian who is doing some innovative work with Pidgin!  Mahalo to Rice in Paradise PR for sharing the news!

Indigenous people make up less than .005 percent of the tech workforce in the United States, and even fewer of those numbers are women. Ahead of Indigenous Peoples’ Day on October 14, we spoke to Yale junior Kyra Kaya, who is currently building a first-of-its-kind text extraction model based on the Hawaiʻi Creole language of Pidgin.

Kaya, who's family is from Ke‘anae, Maui, is making waves in the tech industry and helping to advance Hawaiian culture. As a Native Hawaiian, she is an active member of Rewriting the Code’s (RTC) Tech Natives program, which brings together Indigenous and First Nations women in technology and engineering majors. "My family hails from a very rural part of Maui where access to technology is incredibly limited. My Tutu (grandmother) has to drive two hours from her home just to use basic technologies like television and computers," said Kaya. "Broadening tech access in rural Indigenous communities is an issue I am very passionate about pursuing in the future."

Through RTC, she received a grant to attend the American Indian Science and Engineering Society conference and Kyra was a recipient of RTC’s Last Mile Education Fund, which provides rapid-response grants to close the graduation gap for low-income computing students.

"I think one of the first steps in stepping into a space like the world of STEM is having a reliable support system and mentors you can look to for guidance," Kaya said. "Tech Natives provides an accessible space to forge these connections on an intimate level. Furthermore, it’s an awesome opportunity to meet Indigenous and First Nations girls from around the world looking to get into tech."

Rewriting the Code is a nonprofit with the largest peer-to-peer network of women in tech with more than 30,000 members. RTC offers mentorship, funding, scholarships, resources, education, and year-round events in collaboration with corporate partners. RTC and their Tech Natives members, like Kyra, are committed to changing the face of the tech industry and bringing desperately needed, long-awaited technology to their communities.

Inspired by Hawaiian Pidgin, Kaya's model identifies key phrases in Hawaiian Pidgin and is able to place them into predefined categories such as discussion on food, activities, or greetings. "It was super interesting being able to combine both my cultural background and love for technology into one project," she said.

Kaya is currently studying computer science and psychology at Yale and interned as a product manager at Microsoft under the Azure team this past summer, while continuing her goal of creating new technologies for Indigenous communities.