As a student, seeing the link between computer coding and physical sensors sparked Dr. Josiah Hester’s lifelong journey of innovation. He makes battery-free devices, wearable sensors, and technology solutions that can merge with Indigenous knowledge. Dr. Hester’s work empowers communities with real-time environmental and health data, working with partners in his Hawaiian homelands and the Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission. For GLIFWC, sensor-equipped buoys monitor growing conditions of manoomin (wild rice), a grain sacred to Ojibwe people that has been negatively impacted by climate change and development. Dr. Hester shows how low-cost tech can drive climate solutions, inform policy, and re-imagine computing with Indigenous innovation.