Dadavan Systems, the Nova Scotian company that has developed educational software for First Nations schools, is now beta-testing its latest product, which helps communities share and preserve their heritage.

Waverley-based Davavan works with First Nations education by providing databases that track students’ attendance and marks, as well as curriculum requirements and lesson plans. Now the company has produced Cultural Codex, which “crowdsources” culture, language and heritage through a shared virtual museum platform.

The need to protect, preserve and share language and culture is a priority for Dadavan’s existing education clients, said the company.

“We listened to our clients,” said CEO Jenny Hill in a statement. “They want tools to preserve and share their culture and language, and they want those tools to be accessible and easy to use. Those conversations inspired the development of Cultural Codex. After speaking with educators, museums, municipalities, academics, and our own friends and families, we knew we needed to create a tool that people from differing cultures, industries, and communities could use.”

The statement said registered individuals, organizations and communities can use Cultural Codex’s templated system to build galleries of sound, video, images, and text that contribute to a shared, searchable repository of cultural knowledge. No design or coding skills are needed to produce beautiful, interactive galleries.

“Cultural Codex enables anyone to readily make a contribution to a pool of knowledge, but also provides tools that support stewardship of access, control and ownership,” said Hill. “It’s designed for communities, and is flexible enough to work well with different types of projects. Projects are only limited by imagination.”

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Published galleries are searchable across communities, making it easy to explore galleries from multiple contributors in any given subject. The purpose for Cultural Codex is embedded in its name. Bound, handwritten codices (the plural for codex) were the first ancient books.

Cultural Codex is free while in beta mode. The full release is scheduled for early 2017 with additional features for community management and new templates.

Customers will be able to choose which membership level they choose to join, or request a customized platform.

Founded in the late 1990s, Dadavan set out with the goal of improving the high school graduation rates of First Nations students. The graduation rate of First Nations youth living on-reserve was 35.5 per cent in 2011, compared with 78 per cent in the general population, according to figures in a 2013 report by the School of Policy Studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont.

Dadavan’s student information system, Outcomes, has been informed through close collaboration with Indigenous communities across Canada. 

The company has B Corp certification, which means it is classified as an ethical business by the international B Corporation organization.