Yucayekeno Connect

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What is Yucayekeno Connect?

Yucayekeno Connect is a forthcoming mobile application / digital platform created for and by Borikua Taíno Foundation. Our project is rooted in the traditional concept of a “Yucayeke,” which refers to the ancestral villages or territories of our ancestors, and honors a matrilineal, land-based system of kinship among the Taíno people. Through our platform, users can enroll in the Taino Nation of Borikan, learn about their ancestral Yucayeke, document their heritage, access free educational resources, and connect with others in a tribally owned and operated space.

Because our platform is tribally owned and operated, all decision-making authority and long-term control remain within the Taino Nation of Borikén, ensuring it benefits our community rather than outside entities

What’s the Purpose / Mission?

We seek to undo centuries of erasure of the Borikua Taíno people by “re-indigenizing” what being part of a Yucayekeno means. We are recovering a traditional understanding of community, land, lineage, and belonging that has been missing from the Taino movement, one that acknowledges the origins of our ancestors. Our platform provides a protected digital space (with data sovereignty and privacy in mind) where community histories, ancestry, oral traditions, and educational resources can be preserved and shared. 

All data within Yucayekeno Connect is governed by a tribally designated committee to ensure that information is stewarded according to Indigenous CARE principles, cultural protocols, and community consent. 

Key Features & What Users Can Do

• Yucayekeno Connect is being shaped through ongoing community consultation to ensure that features, design, and values reflect Borikua Taíno needs and lived experiences.

• Users can enroll / register in a community-wide registry for Borikua Taíno descendants. This helps formalize connections and lineage in a context where no official enrollment system exists. 

• Cultural and educational resources: oral histories, ancestral knowledge, and materials that help users learn about their heritage and their territories. 

• Connectivity and community-building, allowing descendants to find and connect across geographies, strengthening communal identity and shared history.

• Can be accessed from anywhere in the world. 

Our long-term roadmap includes tools such as Yucayeke mapping, family search functions, oral-history archives, language-learning modules, and integration with our Tribal Data Center as it comes online. Additionally, we are seeking energy solutions to ensure we remain online even in inclement weather conditions and power outages that impact Puerto Rico. 

Recognition & Support

In 2024, Yucayekeno Connect was selected as a finalist in the MIT Solve Indigenous Communities Fellowship. Among over 2,200 global applications, we were chosen as one of the 30 “Solver Teams.” Through the fellowship, we received a $10,000 award and access to funding, mentorship, and resources to help scale our impact. This support has connected us with similar Native led digital solutions across the country, strengthening the wider network of digital independence for Indigenous communities. 

Unlike commercial genealogy platforms, Yucayekeno Connect does not rely on DNA testing alone and rejects extractive data practices. Instead, we center matrilineal kinship, oral histories, and land-based lineage, all methods that honor Taíno cultural identity. We envision this project as a model for Indigenous-led digital innovation that merges traditional knowledge with app technology for all our kin. 

Why It Matters
There is currently no official enrollment system documenting Borikua Taíno, and without one, our histories remain scattered, vulnerable to misrepresentation, or lost in digital spaces we do not control. Yucayekeno Connect fills this critical void by creating the first tribally governed platform on a tribally owned server where identity, lineage, and collective memory can be protected for future generations. By grounding our work in traditional, land-based, matrilineal ties, we are rebuilding what colonization attempted to erase: our belonging as a people. Every registration, every Yucayeke mapped, and every story preserved strengthens a nation in repair.

As Indigenous communities across the world reclaim our data. A contribution today directly fuels the development of a sovereign digital ecosystem that cannot be taken from us, sold off, overwritten, erased, or siphoned by opportunists. We are building security infrastructure, convening community consultations, preparing and gathering teaching materials, and strengthening long-term governance that will keep our data in our own hands.

Your donation ensures that the next generation of Borikua Taíno descendants will inherit a place where their lineage is not questioned by erasure politics, and biases that pit us against one another.  We honor the stories of our elders & want to ensure they are protected and that family trees are repaired. 13