IT company helping bring technology to First Nations

Since it first opened its doors two years ago, Morning Star Technologies has been making a name for itself by helping businesses and organizations identify their technology needs and providing them with the services and equipment to meet those needs. But while they've been working to grow their business, the company's partners have also been working to ensure that First Nation individuals and communities are also sharing in their success.
"My vision with the company is to employ as many First Nations as possible and also enable our First Nations in rural communities through the use of technology to better enable their day-to-day business operations," said Lorne Kequatooway, Morning Star's president and CEO.
While the company is only a few years old, the three partners behind Morning Star each bring more than a decade of IT experience to the mix. Kequatooway has been in the field for 10 years, Dwayne Hnatiw has 11 years of experience in and Darryl Bauche has been toiling with technology for a dozen years.
With each new client, Morning Star will go in and interview all staff, from management on down to find out how they use technology to do their jobs and how technology could help them do their jobs more efficiently, Kequatooway explained. Based on that information, the company then develops a strategic technology plan outlining what hardware and software the client needs, a timeline for installing the needed technology and an estimate of how much it will all cost.
Once the client has received the strategic technology plan, there's no guarantee that they will give the job of implementing the plan to Morning Star, but by that stage, Kequatooway said, the company has usually begun to build a relationship with the client that the client will want to continue.
"Through our interview process, it helps us build a rapport with the client, and the trust, because we want to be there for the long-term and become their trusted advisor in the technology field,"
Building these types of long-term relationships is advantageous not only for Morning Star but for the client as well, Kequatooway said.
"Because what we've encountered going out to some First Nations is that they'll have someone that sells computers or that has come out and dropped off computers there and then they've basically taken a cheque and then walked away. And there's no support or follow-up or anything afterwards and they're left like, 'What now? We have this but we don't know how to use it.' So that's the value-added that we propose, that we're going to be there for the long-term. We want to come in, give you this plan, help you implement the solution, and we'll mentor and train. If there's someone local, we'll train them, bring them along as part of the project so that they're there for each step of the project and they'll know what's going on."
The company has already begun developing those long-term relationships with a couple of First Nations-through projects with White Bear First Nation and Yorkton Tribal Council child and family services-and is working to add other communities to the list.
Morning Star has recently added another facet to its operations, thanks to an agreement with the provincial government that will see the company refurbishing government computers that are coming off lease before they are returned to Lenovo Canada, the company that holds the contract to provide the province with its computer hardware for the next three years.
Kequatooway expects Morning Star will have to hire about three new employees to work in the refurbishing centre, a number that could grow as the number of computers running through the centre increases. And he'd like to see many of those positions going to Aboriginal people.
"I've got a lot of resumes that come in from First Nations that have gone through SIIT (Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technologies) or SIAST (Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technologies) or some technical course. And they've finished the course but they have no real experience so it's kind of hard for us to use them on projects until they actually get that experience. So we'll find this will be a good fit for them," Kequahtooway said.