Project Title:Arctic Community Connectivity for Equity, Sustainability, and Service (ACCESS)PI: Philip Ferguson (University of Manitoba)Project Overview, Justification, and Background:Northern communities receive inequitable services compared to the rest of Canada, particularly those related to communications and data sharing. Even newer satellite internet service remains unreliable in Canada’s Arctic, which limits critical communication amongst communities for environmental situational awareness and medical emergencies. The Arctic Community Connectivity for Equity, Sustainability, and Service (ACCESS) project will be a community-led endeavour that aims to understand the opportunities and challenges associated with high-bandwidth internet communications for northern communities and address them by developing a drone airship to act as a satellite communications hub for communities.Location:Chesterfield Inlet, NunavutDuration:3 yearsMethods:We plan to: •Conduct social needs assessments with the community to understand how people are communicating now, their challenges, and suggestions for how to improve communications, particularly surrounding hunters and trappers travelling beyond their communities•Co-develop airship technologies that could provide improved communications networks and situational awareness for people travelling between and beyond communities•Demonstrate and evaluate the effectiveness of the new solutions within and outside the communitySharing Research Results:We plan to share the results of the research directly with the communities through a series of town-hall style meetings, detailed technology transfer discussions, and postings on local news / information sharing platforms (such as the Chesterfield Inlet Facebook Group).