Approachable Excellence
Mason Grimshaw
Data Scientist at Ode Partners. VP of IndigiGenius. Co-founder of the Lakota AI Code Camp. Sicangu Lakota. Husband. Dad to 4.
I build AI systems that work in production and teach data science to Indigenous youth. Most of my time goes to figuring out what a tool actually does for people — and whether it should exist at all.
Projects
Things I've built.
A mix of production tools, community platforms, and experiments.
How Machines See California
Interactive scrollytelling visualization exploring how AI embeddings organize 94,000+ satellite tiles of California by land cover — without being told what to look for.
Lakota AI Code Camp
Curriculum and platform for teaching AI and data science to Indigenous youth on the Rosebud Reservation.
Featured
Highlights.
Bringing AI from Silicon Valley to the Black Hills
TEDx Boston — March 2023
Elevate Magazine: Innovation in the Black Hills
Cover story on Lakota AI Code Camp — October 2022
Indigenous Youth Are Using Coding and AI to Save Native Language
Teen Vogue — January 2024
Feature on the Lakota AI Code Camp and how Indigenous students are using AI to preserve endangered languages.
PressLakota Code Camp: Bringing It to Native Communities
Forbes — November 2023
Coverage of the Lakota AI Code Camp and the mission to bring AI education to Native communities.
AwardPritzker Environmental Genius Award Nominee
UCLA Institute of the Environment & Sustainability — 2025
Nominated for work at the intersection of AI, Indigenous knowledge, and environmental stewardship.
AI Literacy and Data Sovereignty for Indigenous Communities
In AI We Trust? — EqualAI — March 2025
Axios +AI Summit
Axios — 2024
Probabilistic Living: Indigenous Data Sovereignty
Apple Podcasts — 2025
Conversation on probabilistic thinking, Indigenous data sovereignty, and building AI systems that serve communities.
Indigenous AI
Fuller Seminar: AI and Conservation — February 2023