Turtle Island Building Trust aimed at matching Indigenous vendors with business opportunities
After more than a decade in the construction industry, Luke Antonio saw major gaps in the procurement system that disadvantaged Indigenous vendors. His answer? Build a new platform.
Antonio, a project manager for Prosperi construction firm in Sudbury, debuted Turtle Island Building Trust (TIBT) in January.
Self-funded, and created with a small team of developers, the online portal serves as a one-stop shop for tender and procurement information in the design-build sector.
“I’ve been pushing and lobbying towards this for such a long time, but without a platform to speak on or being integrated with some of the platforms or the businesses, it’s impossible to really do anything,” he said.
“So the only way that I knew that I can get this done is by self-funding and getting this platform moving, and that’s what I’ve done.”
Among the gaps Antonio said he’s seen, there’s a lack of a visible, progressive business directory that’s available across Canada. There’s a need for an aggregated tender portal from major platforms that’s available to Indigenous businesses, and there’s a need for a workforce module that highlights Indigenous labour for specific trades.
His directory incorporates all these things, and it’s free to use for Indigenous businesses.
“It needs to be accessible by everyone,” said Antonio, a member of Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory. “So this platform is free for Indigenous businesses.”
Work on Turtle Island Building Trust began two years ago, after he launched BuildCode, a technology company that solves tech problems centred on AI, software, and blockchain. With that programming experience, he saw an opportunity to build the procurement platform he wished was available.
Doing the programming himself gives him the ability to quickly make adjustments or changes that could take other companies weeks or months, he said. It’s this agility and flexibility that Antonio believes will help the platform succeed and go nationwide, which is his goal.
“If you’re leading on the tech side, you’re leading on the industry side and you’re leading on the Indigenous side, keeping in the loop and staying alongside organizations, honestly, that’s that’s the key right now,” he said. “And if you hit all three and execute it, I think it can happen.”
With Turtle Island Building Trust, members can pinpoint on a map where Indigenous businesses are located. Turtle Island Building Trust/Screenshot
What makes Antonio’s solution stand out is the use of AI, indexing tools and other progressive technology to aggregate and integrate data. This is a departure from more traditional platforms that use spreadsheets or imported data, he said.
Users of the site can search for a vendor or service and, within seconds, the directory will show on a map all the Indigenous businesses that meet their criteria. Clicking on a vendor immediately brings up contact information and list of services. Each listed vendor goes through a verification process to ensure they are a legitimate Indigenous, Inuit or Métis business.
TIBT takes the database of the services of each vendor and converts it into UN codes, which is the same format used by tender and procurement sites such as MERX by SOVRA, Biddingo or CanadaBuys. This ensures the data is comparing “apples to apples.”
“We get them to talk to each other a lot easier, and we make it happen very, very quickly,” Antonio said.
The portal can then match tender opportunities with businesses operating in the project area.
Rather than compete with the major national or North American procurement portals, Antonio said his system is designed to work in concert with them.
Every city or municipality handles procurement differently, Antonio said, but TIBT aims to make the process more efficient by putting all the information into one place so vendors have the best chance at success.
“Right now, if there’s 15 to 20 different procurement portals, how are people ever going to actually be able to see all this data?” said Antonio, who also runs PLA, a project planning and construction firm focused on working with Indigenous communities and organizations.
Antonio scored a big win for his platform in late February after signing a partnership agreement that enables Turtle Island Building Trust to host content from MERX by SOVRA directly on its site.
“This collaboration allows us to extend the reach of our procurement content in a way that supports meaningful engagement with Indigenous businesses,” said Clayton Feick, president of SOVRA Supplier, in a news release. “By integrating with Turtle Island Building Trust’s platform, we are helping buyers connect more easily with Indigenous suppliers while increasing visibility into public sector opportunities.”
To spread the word about Turtle Island Building Trust, Antonio began outreach to vendors and industry in late January. Antonio said the company would be bringing on a student intern from his alma mater, Conestoga College, to help with marketing efforts.
Eventually, Antonio said, the platform will offer additional, user-pay modules for buyers, but he insists it will always remain free for Indigenous businesses to use.
He’s hoping to secure some funding to help with ongoing costs associated with subscription fees and upgrading the technology.
And he emphasized this is not a money-making venture for him.
“It’s bigger than that,” he said. “This is a need. This is a gap that needs to be filled, and if no one’s going to do it, I’m going to do it, because it needs to be done.”