Sunshine is a fiercely driven, entrepreneurial-minded professional who effortlessly wears more hats than most could imagine. A scientist, activist, Ethnobotanist, and IT innovator.

The Barbados-born Toronto native earned a degree in Sustainable Agriculture, before self-funding a 2-year globe-trotting odyssey through work on regional farms and as a chef. Currently, Sunshine applies mobile tech to knowledge systems, specific to Public Health and Industrial Hygiene towards sustainable cities. She’s an Ethnobotanist who’s studied Health & Wellness (via Applied Historical Ecology and Medicinal Anthropology), with a focus on Indigenous knowledge systems as they specifically relate to traditional ecological knowledge (TEK).

AmnAya is a robust database of regional plants and their relation to public health (i.e., herbal remedies) with assistance of tech collaborator, Shabih Haider, is then made available to indigenous and socio-economically deprived populations around the world (with a particular interest in the Global South) via a user-friendly web and mobile app. Pairing traditional knowledge with Western academic studies; using a collaborative editing platform similar in practice to that of Wikipedia allows for communities to actively claim ownership of their native resources.

Goal? (1) The reclamation and (cultural) preservation of information lost through historical migration, various forms of gentrification, and even biopiracy by large corporations. (2) Data is re-introduced through hyper-local community-based work: from workshops and edible schoolyard curriculum to community gardens. (3) Empowers communities to preserve, protect and employ their knowledge for local benefit.

Best promotes her efforts — often doing public speaking as well as workshops for conferences and symposiums.

Started her MSPH in 2019. 2020 brings beta-testing specific countries globally, and possibly with Indigenous nations [in the United States].

And yes, Sunshine Best IS her real name.