More than $10k raised in Indigemoji fundraising campaign

After starting an “all or nothing” fundraising campaign, the makers of a Red Centre Arrernte language app are stoked that they reached their goal – and it was thanks to one big donation.

Indigemoji emoji bosses Joel Purrule Liddle and Veronica Dobson Purrule. Picture: Indigemoji/Kickstarter

A group of Red Centre linguists, app developers and artists are ecstatic that they have successfully fundraised to keep their Arrernte language app alive.

On April 10, Alice Springs-based Indigemoji launched an online fundraising campaign on Kickstarter to get $10,000 to update their app.

But the fundraiser came with a caveat – it was “all or nothing”, meaning if their goal wasn’t reached by May 10, they wouldn’t proceed.

And two weeks from deadline, the app was still $4000 short of its funding goal.

But then Adam Whitehead from Radical Systems heard about the fundraiser, and donated the $4,169 required for Indigemoji to reach its Kickstarter goal.

“The NT News article was the first we’d heard of the Indigemoji project,” Mr Whitehead said.

“The more we learn about Indigemoji, the more we think it is a trailblazing project, with the involvement of numerous Indigenous technologists and artists, young and old.

A new 'Indigemoji' app has been developed in Central Australia. Photo: Emma Murray

“Preserving some of the world’s oldest Indigenous languages is an inspirational mission.”

Indigemoji founder and “emoji boss” Joel Liddle thanked everyone who donated to help save the app.

“I’m always amazed at how much love there is for Indigemoji and we’re excited to be able to fix it up so that our community can continue to share our language and culture online,” he said.

“No one learns a language from reading a dictionary, they learn it from storytelling and imagery and things they can relate to. Indigemoji can now keep doing that for years to come.”

The kickstarter netted Indigemoji $12,735 in the end, with 107 backers donating to the cause online.

App developer and Lutritja man Matthew Heffernan said seeing the fundraiser reach its goal was incredible.

“I’m absolutely blown away and feel honoured to be part of a community that digs deep, even with current cost of living issues impacting all of us,” he said.

“It tells me that people are finding our work meaningful.”

Mr Heffernan said the funds would be used to update the app so it runs on newer phone hardware.

“There’s all this background work needed to keep an app up to date. We’ve been keeping it going behind the scenes the best we can, but we need to do a full update so it’s working again on all phones.”