From time to time people reach out to me on Twitter with questions and earlier this week my mate Dave from Ripped Orange did precisely that:
@samuelmcneill just had a good korero on configuring Win 11 to better support Te Reo with a blend of language packs and auto correct settings have you seen any good blogs on the topic?
Serendipitously, later that day my daughter reached out to me with some frustrations whilst writing a paper for her te reo Māori course at the University of Otago:
One thing led to another and after helping her solve the problem she had, I asked her if she would craft a quick guest blog post for me with how she did it and what the outcome was.
Guest Post from Imogen Te Rangimarie
Kia ora koutou,
As a university student studying some Te Reo Māori, I’ve learned a lot in the past year or so. Te Reo is a beautiful language and it’s particularly lovely to listen to. Less beautiful, however, is reading a Word doc in Te Reo that’s full of ugly red squiggles. Such was my complaint while completing a written assignment in Te Reo – though I’m very much still learning and making mistakes in the process, I was pretty certain that I hadn’t made as many as can be glimpsed below:
It turns out that Māori does, in fact, have proofing available, and so I followed the above instructions. It did take me a minute to find the Option tab, which is right down at the very bottom. From there, I was off. I selected Māori, and clicked on where it said Proofing available. It took a minute to download and install – my computer discovered other Office updates it wanted to do first – but the options screen ended up looking like this.
Observe how in the settings, it now says that Māori has proofing installed. It is possible to then set Māori as your default language if that’s what you mainly do your writing in, by clicking on the Māori row and then clicking Set as Preference. This requires a restart of Word but is then almost ready to go.
I say almost, because I was initially dismayed to discover that the 800-odd words of my assignment were still full of red underlines – clearly it didn’t automatically apply to previously-written text. To get around this without retyping the document, I cut and then pasted without keeping source formatting. Lo and behold, gone were the red lines for all but a few unusual names, as you can see below:
The next thing I discovered was that the benefits went beyond the page being much easier on the eyes – the proofreading actually worked. (That is, it worked as far as I could tell; it may be that there are more complex aspects of Māori that it struggles with). Observe the underline in the example sentence below:
Not only has Word correctly recognised that ‘nga’ is not the right spelling, but it even prompts a correction upon right-clicking, as below:
In my opinion, this is pretty fantastic! If we’re looking to normalise the use of Te Reo while out and about in the world, it’s incredibly useful to be able to write documents in Te Reo Māori without having to backspace and retype every particle i after it autocorrects to a capital I. I’m stoked that the process for installing Māori as a proofing language was straightforward, and Mahuru Māori seems an excellent time to have discovered it.
This article first appeared on the Interface Magazine website here and is re-published here with permission. I do encourage you to check out the main Interface Magazine online for super helpful edu-tech articles and insights. Ngā Motu remains one of projects I’m most proud to be associated with personally, having come up with the idea originally and then worked with a great team of people both in and out of Microsoft to make it happen. If you’re interested in the backstory of how Ngā Motu was created, then check out: Ngā Motu – A Story of Whānaungatanga (Connectedness).
Now, here is the article from Interface Magazine:
Ngā Motu has been helping students better understand te ao Māori since its launch in 2019. To further cement its role within the classroom, Microsoft worked with CORE Education to develop companion learning resources for teachers, so they can use Ngā Motu in their learning and follow the guidelines set out under teaching for Level 3 and 4 Digital Technology in both national curricula of Aotearoa: The New Zealand Curriculum (NZC) and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa (TMoA).
Ngā Motu (The Islands) is a Māori world built within Minecraft: Education Edition. Created by Piki Studios’ Whetu Paitai, students can explore the fictional island and its built environment, including a classic pā (fortified village), and meeting whānau (family) from the local hapu~ (tribe), who help explain the layout and use of the area, while teaching the students te reo vocabulary and pronunciation. This engages students in the history of their land, the indigenous people of New Zealand and their cultural values, all within the familiar and fascinating world of Minecraft, and helps them to gain confidence with digital tools.
“Māori have always been a people of technology,” said Whetu, “Minecraft is just the latest in a long line of technologies that we have used to kārero (tell stories).”
Ngā Motu was an immediate hit with teachers and students, but the initial launch was still a proof of concept. Ngā Motu’s open world nature meant that, while students and teachers could interact with the world in whichever way they preferred, it was difficult to know whether the lessons they were putting into practice fitted into the prescribed learning outcomes of both the NZC and TMoA. At the same time, the technological nature of Ngā Motu, as well as the concepts of te ao Māori (the Māori world), were both potential barriers to engaging with the product for some teachers. Many teachers who reached out wanted to put this resource to use but lacked the confidence to do so in a way that lined up with the curricula and te ao Māori.
Recognising the need to align Ngā Motu with the curricula and make it more accessible, Microsoft reached out to CORE Education Tātai Aho Rau, an organisation that specialises in transforming education with effective products and services and which has a strong equity-first mindset in its practice.
Lessons built on a Māori foundation for all students
Working alongside Microsoft’s education team and Piki Studios, CORE Education developed a set of student game cards and teacher resources using Ngā Motu that fitted in with the Digital Technology Curriculum Levels 3 and 4, for students in year 6-8, in both Māori and English mediums. This approach meant that there was a structure available for teachers and students who needed it, while still allowing for spontaneous discovery, which has been a feature of Ngā Motu since launch.
“Anything that is produced for a New Zealand education context should be built on a bicultural foundation,” said Gemma Stewart, a former bilingual teacher who was a key part of the CORE team on this project.
“Te Ao Māori isn’t a standalone subject. In order to understand a Māori worldview, you need to experience it and mātauranga Māori (Mãori knowledge) needs to be integrated across the curriculum.”
Following this philosophy, lessons and resources around Ngā Motu were developed in a Māori context first, before developing English language resources. It was a key part of the process; to understand the whakapapa (lineage) of Ngā Motu, so that anything built on top of the product would be true to Whetu’s original vision.
The process was led by an understanding of the kaupapa (purpose) of the original project and integrating those principles into the resources.
“There’s a tendency in education to develop resources in te ao Pākehā (the Western worldview) first and then just translate the words,” added Gemma. “We knew that this project had to be based on te ao Māori first.”
The English medium resources allowed a broader audience to access the lessons without departing from the original whakapapa of the Ngā Motu project. It was important that language was not a barrier for teachers who wanted to engage with te ao Māori but might have lacked confidence in the past.
Inside the main wharenui in Ngā Motu
Design is critically important for conveying te ao Mãori
While the resources were being developed, Microsoft and Piki Studios worked alongside Maui Studios, a Māori-owned-and-operated design agency, to develop and design the look and feel of the learning resources for use in the classroom.
Maui Studios operates with a tikanga-first mindset, and the organisation works primarily on Kaupapa Māori projects, informed by mātanga (experts). It was important for Maui that the resources conveyed te ao Māori in a way that was accessible for tāngata whenua (indigenous people), which would then flow on to a broader Pākehā and tauiwi (non-Māori) audience as well.
“Design is critically important for conveying te ao Māori,” said Vincent Egan, who led the project for Maui. “The patterns and symbology utilised in the resources play an important role in creating context for the lessons in Ngā Motu, so we wanted to make sure it reflected the guidance of our mātanga.”
For example, the resources make extensive use of patterns to do with wai (water). This reflects not only the water in the world of Ngā Motu, but also movement and flow, and the changing media through which te ao Māori is understood, from carvings and tā moko (tattoo) through to the digital environment of Minecraft.
Since being finalised, CORE Education has been introducing the resources to teachers through a series of webinars, to provide educators confidence and structure for lessons.
Learn crucial digital skills while better understanding the history of Aotearoa
With the help of these new resources, Ngā Motu and the opportunities for learning it creates, are more accessible than ever to New Zealand students. Minecraft: Education Edition is provided to all state and state integrated schools and students through the Ministry of Education Schools Agreement and now that there are structured learning resources associated with Ngā Motu, every student and teacher can approach learning with Ngā Motu with the confidence that they are aligning with the curricula.
The small waka beached on the shore of Ngā Motu
This creates huge benefits for students, who get to have fun while they learn, and learn crucial digital skills and capabilities while gaining a better understanding of the history of Aotearoa and the values of its indigenous people. Feedback on the new resources from teachers has been extremely positive, with teachers feeling less intimidated by the technology and concepts, and able to focus instead of the richness of learning for their students.
“Students in 2021 face unprecedented challenges,” said Lydia Kronawetter, Education Industry Executive at Microsoft. “Between ongoing disruptions to the school year and a constantly changing world, it’s more important than ever that students have strong digital and cultural skills.”
Preparing students for the modern world
Learning tools like Ngā Motu can play a key part in preparing students for life after school.
“School leavers need to enter the adult world with digital abilities, and an understanding of New Zealand’s unique history and culture is just as important,” continued Lydia. “Learning with Ngā Motu allows students to improve their digital skills and learn about te ao Māori in an engaging environment that doesn’t feel like just another lesson.
“Microsoft is committed to helping to address these challenges. Integrating products like Ngā Motu into the curricula is just one way to ensure that students stay excited about their learning journey and are provided with the skills and knowledge they will need in the modern world.”
UPDATE 19th December: Great to see that Māori translation is now being supported in a wider range of applications inside of Office365. Today, I see that Mike Tholfsen tweeted that translation to/from te reo Māori is now supported inside of Immersive Reader:
NEW! For our New Zealand 🇳🇿 teachers and students – we've rolled out the Maori language for Immersive Reader & translate 🎉 You can translate any text into Maori or vice-versa (we don't yet do read-aloud) Example 👇#edtech#MIEExpert#MicrosoftEDU
This is another important step to making this language accessible to a wider audience and delivering all of the benefits of Immersive Reader from an accessibility and learning aide perspective.
Today, in New Zealand, 15% of the population is Māori yet only a quarter of the Māori people speak their native language, and only 3% of all people living in New Zealand speak te reo Maori.
This new translation support was announced at St Joseph’s Orakei School in Auckland with Satya Nadella in attendance:
What excites me is this is the culmination of 14 years of engagement from the Microsoft NZ team to deliver better native support for Te Reo Māori across the Microsoft offerings. I’ve personally been involved in the project around Ngā Motu, our Te Ao Māori world inside of Minecraft: Education Edition where we worked closely with Whetu Paitai and his team at Piki Studios which not only created the world, but also a fully translated Resource Pack for Minecraft: Education (or Mahi Maina) for an immersive reo Māori experience.
With the inclusion of Te Reo Māori into Microsoft Translator, users can now translate back and forth from English and Māori, but also from other languages into Māori. Powering these translations is Microsoft’s Neural Machine Translation technologies:
Te reo Māori will employ Microsoft’s Neural Machine Translation (NMT) techniques, which can be more accurate than statistical translation models. We recently achieved human parity in translating news from Chinese to English, and the advanced machine learning used for te reo Māori will continue to become better and better as even more documents are used to “teach” it every nuance of the language. This technology will be leveraged across all our M365 products and services.
Here are some tweets around the announcement:
The Māori history and identity are intrinsic parts of all New Zealander’s cultural heritage. Today we announced that Microsoft Translator will recognize the Māori language, which will allow us all to preserve and celebrate it for generations to come. https://t.co/kxVvhqkUZH
Fantastic to be in New Zealand today, meeting with so many incredible innovators, including those who are applying technology to help keep the Māori language alive. https://t.co/0BYMjLiWU7
— NZ Tech Podcast: Voice of the Tech Community (@NZTechPodcast) November 21, 2019
More details in this Microsoft News Centre annoucement. You can also see Will Lewis, the Principal Architect for Microsoft Translator, talking about this technology at the 1hr 57min mark of this video in the following Tweet:
The quote above means ‘face to face, in person, in the flesh’ and therefore it might seem a strange choice to start a blog post about a computer game, nevertheless it is of central importance in the genesis of Ngā Motu.
Just over 12 months ago I had a māramatanga(brainwave, big idea): how could we leverage Minecraft: Education Edition, a hugely popular platform that was available to all ākonga (students) in State and State-Integrated schools in Aotearoa (New Zealand) to promote:
Te Ao Māori – the Māori world
Te Reo Māori – the Māori language
Tikanga – the procedures, protocols and customs of Māori
In many ways it was an ambitious idea for any number of reasons and yet here we are in Te Wiki O Te Reo Māori 2019 launching Ngā Motu to the world through this incredible video:
Starting At The Beginning:
It was mid 2018 and after the initial surge of excitement about my māramatanga for leveraging Minecraft: Education Edition to build something distinctively Kiwi, I was trying to find the right partner who could actually build out this grand vision. It was at this stage that my long time Te Reo Twitter buddy Te Mihinga Komene suggested I reach out to someone called Whetu Paitai and inquire about his previous work on the Minecraft: Java Edition platform he had called Mahi Maina (a sort of transliteration of Minecraft, Mahi meaning ‘to work’ and Maina meaning ‘mining’).
Before continuing the narrative, however, and in keeping with the theme of connectedness / whanaungatanga and the importance of face to face meetings to Māori, it’s worth showing the quote behind Te Mihinga’s Twitter account to reinforce this:
My language connects me
My family grounds me
My culture defines me
It is this type of mindset and deep seated belief that has been a constant throughout the last 12 months of working towards delivering Ngā Motu to the world. Ironically, however, in the absence of any direct contact details and only a few sketchy search results on FaceBook hinting at the existence of Mahi Maina, I resorted to messaging Whetu on LinkedIn – hardly an auspicious start!
As the screenshot shows, a virtual connection was made, and our joint hīkoi (journey) began.
Students start their exploration of Ngā Motu on the waka hourua – the double hulled canoe – it’s a fitting metaphor for the hīkoi (journey) we’ve been on to deliver this Minecraft world over the last 12 months
Building Whanaungatanga (Connectedness)
Whanaungatanga: a relationship through shared experiences and working together which provides people with a sense of belonging.
After the initial connection on LinkedIn, Whetu and I had a number of phone calls where I became ever more excited about his knowledge, skills and experience in both Minecraft and Te Ao Māori. This led to Anne Taylor (Education Lead for Microsoft NZ) meeting kanohi ki te kanohi (face to face) with Whetu near his home in the beautiful Coromandel area of New Zealand. I then had a chance to connect in person with Whetu and three of his tamariki(children) when he visited the Microsoft Auckland office in December 2018. With a hongi(pressing of noses together) on greeting, Whetu and I were ready to get into the nuts and bolts of what we were really trying to create together.
We were united in our tūruapō (vision) to use this platform to promote te reo Māori (the Māori language) something that even the best intentioned kaiako (teachers) sometimes find challenging, especially around the correct pronunciation of Māori words. At the time, I could never have imagined how cleverly Whetu would utilize his deep understanding of the Minecraft platform to build out a series of lessons that harnessed the innate game play of Minecraft to teach students the fundamentals of te reo Māori.
Whakataukī(Proverbs, wisdom) form an important part of Māoritanga (Māori culture) and I love them because many combine vivid imagery with sage advice. It was at this meeting in December that a pathway of co-operation was forged that ultimately has led to the release of Ngā Motu this week. The following whakataukī is therefore appropriate:
Ko koe ki tēnā, ko ahau ki tēnei kīwai o te kete
You at that and I at this handle of the basket
The meaning is clear: when we both carry one handle of the basket, we share the load and can achieve more together than we may have done separately. Whetu, and his company Piki Studios, along with Anne and myself representing Microsoft, shared the vision and mahi(work) to bring Ngā Motu to completion.
The Momentum Grows
With the idea starting to take serious shape, others began to hear about the idea and lend their support. In particular, the incredibly passionate Minecraft: Education Edition team from Microsoft Corp in Seattle. This culminated in Deirdre Quarnstrom and Sara Cornish flying down to Wellington, New Zealand to connect with Marianne Malmstrom and Simon McAtamney from Newlands Intermediate School to film a hack mini that Marianne was running as a holiday programme, and where Whetu Paitai would debut Ngā Motu to students for the first time as a closed beta testing release. As the tweets show, it was very well received:
We're excited to be at @NewlandsInt in Wellington, New Zealand, for a Minecraft #HackMini. Students are building mashups with #MinecraftEdu and other creative digital tech. 💻⛏️ Teams are modding mobs, building sky castles, making resource packs and more! #TeAoMaoripic.twitter.com/zD2rSqz5s8
— Minecraft Education (@PlayCraftLearn) July 17, 2019
As I reflect on the diverse range of people involved in the Ngā Motu project, I truly believe it is the vibrancy and power of Māoritanga that has drawn them into this project and the passion for the taonga (treasure) that is te reo Māori (the language) that many New Zealanders like Whetu and the incredible teachers at Newlands Intermediate demonstrate. To be able to see this rich culture visibly emerge as distinctively Māori through Minecraft and the work of Piki Studios made everyone involved incredibly proud:
The mythical, the extinct and the present all co-exist inside of Ngā Motu. Top left to right: a taniwha(water spirit / guardian), the kiwi bird (national bird of New Zealand), inside a wharenui (meeting house), a moa(extinct, flightless bird)
Ngā Motu – A Koha(gift) To Ākonga(students) Everywhere
This week of Te Wiki O Te Reo Māori (Māori Language Week) sees the official launch of Ngā Motu.
Ngā Motu Resource PackA global resource pack that can be loaded into Minecraft: Education Edition that themes the game and also allows for full te reo Māori translation of all menus
As you can see from the above screenshots, there is much to explore inside of Ngā Motu and I can’t wait to hear the clever ways students and educators adapt the world to various learning outcomes. There are three main structured lessons inside the world that teach students:
Māori Vowel Sounds
Māori Consonant Sounds
Māori Numbers
Realistically, however, there are infinite ways Ngā Motu can be used to teach any number of concepts. I hope to update this post in the future with new ideas and also how the world itself evolves in future iterations.
Final Thoughts:
I am incredibly proud to have been able to contribute to this project in various ways, thrilled by the new relationships it has introduced me to and excited for the possibilities that Ngā Motu will be used by educators in both Aotearoa (New Zealand) and beyond.
Seeing the collective reactions of people to this world during the development and pre-release stages has been humbling – everyone loves the work Whetu has contributed to this project.
I am going to finish this blog post with a final whakataukī (proverb):
Takoto kau ana te whānau a Tāne
The children of Tāne lie prone
This proverb means that once the trees are cleared away, the work is done: it applies to any work that is now completed (in Māori mythology, the forest trees are the children of Tāne).
With Ngā Motu now finished and released as a koha (gift) to the global education community the hīkoi (journey) may be drawing to a close, but the whanaungatanga (relationships and connectedness) will endure.
This week Aotearoa New Zealand celebrates Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori or Māori Language Week. This is an important cultural week for all New Zealanders as we collectively work towards preserving the taonga (treasure) that is our native language. If you’re wondering about the relevance of my blog post as “The Kuia Cloud”, please do persevere and keep reading as it will become evident (kuia is Māori for elderly woman or grandmother). As an added word association, Aotearoa literally means “land of the long white cloud” so we are perfectly situated to build out a Granny/Kuia Cloud!
In my previous role, I helped organise a Digital Treasure Hunt for students to encourage them to kōrero Māori (speak the Māori language) and after visiting the beautiful Orakei Marae last week with the Microsoft kia rite kick off, my mind has been whirring again around the importance of promoting Te Reo. I admit that this has a personal interest too, with my oldest daughter having now competed twice in the Ngā Manu Kōrero speech competition (you can read her 2017 speech here) and she has expressed a desire to progress her Reo competency so she can become more fluent.
The challenge is, her current secondary school does not offer any tuition in Te Reo and I’ve been using my wider Professional Learning Network to explore options to support her (and to some extent me!) in learning more of the Māori language. It was all of this triggered some long dormant memories of mine about the work of Sugata Mitra and his “hole in the wall” project in New Delhi. If you’re unfamiliar with this, then this summary is a good read, but the key part is as follows:
In early 1999, some colleagues and I sunk a computer into the opening of a wall near our office in Kalkaji, New Delhi. The area was located in an expansive slum, with desperately poor people struggling to survive. The screen was visible from the street, and the PC was available to anyone who passed by. The computer had online access and a number of programs that could be used, but no instructions were given for its use.
What happened next astonished us. Children came running out of the nearest slum and glued themselves to the computer. They couldn’t get enough. They began to click and explore. They began to learn how to use this strange thing. A few hours later, a visibly surprised Vivek said the children were actually surfing the Web.
The findings from this “experiment” led to Mitra delivering an award winning TED talk about his thoughts on the future of learning and his views that students directing their own learning was a critical pathway forward in education. He promoted this with his idea of Schools In The Cloud – have a watch of the following TED talk to learn more:
The extension of Schools In The Cloud was “The Granny Cloud.” Mitra quickly realised that for the illiterate children of the slums of New Delhi, without English even their best learning through playing/experimenting with a computer would inherently be limited if they did not understand the global language of English. To remedy this, he started to build out “The Granny Cloud”, the idea being that retired people (often grandmothers) would give up their time on Skype to simply have conversations with these children and through practicing spoken conversational English, they would improve their opportunities in life.
So far, so good.
The Kuia Cloud
Kingi Tawhiao Potatau te Wherowhero Credit.So I’m wondering aloud whether something as simple as building a Granny Cloud could be replicated in New Zealand, this time using the kuia (elderly woman) and koro (elderly man) to be the support network for people of any age wishing to learn how to kōrero Māori. Undoubtedly the internet is shrinking our world and being able to connect more or less instantaneously to speakers of the Māori language significantly reduces the barriers to entry for learning the language. My daughter wrapped her Ngā Manu Kōrero speech around the following whakatauki (proverb)
ki te kāhore he whakakitenga ka ngaro te iwi (without foresight or vision the people will be lost)
Further on in her speech she talked about the challenges faced in New Zealand over the years with declining numbers of people able to speak Te Reo:
Another major period of Māori history when this whakatauākī, without foresight or vision the people will be lost, was highly applicable was in the 1980s, when it became widely recognised that Te Reo Māori was dying out. Yes, dying out. Prior to this, there had been years of Te Reo being banned in schools and Māori children being punished for speaking it, which in turn led to some parents not teaching their children Māori because they didn’t want their children suffering at school the way they did. If this had continued, who knows how close Te Reo could have come to extinction- it might have even happened, but for a few groups of individuals who were in possession of some foresight. Two initiatives that began in the 1980s to try and revive Te Reo Māori were the Kohanga Reo movement and the Kura Kaupapa.
It would seem to me that perhaps a further opportunity exists now to couple Technology and Te Reo together and build out a “Kuia Cloud” – a network of volunteers who would be willing to give up some of their time to kōrero Māori with those interested in learning more of the language. In doing so, this would demonstrate the foresight and vision that Kingi Tawhiao Potatau te Wherowhero talked about in the mid 1800s and further help preserve this taonga which is absolutely unique to Aotearoa (New Zealand).
I am not sure where to go from here with this idea, although two things do come to mind:
Share this idea and blog post as widely as I can, starting with the #TeReo hashtag on Twitter where incredible educators like Te Mihinga Komene regularly support people with their questions around Te Reo Māori
See if there is anything that the company I work for (Microsoft NZ) can do to help build a network or provide the technology to make this happen. Skype is a Microsoft product and there are a few different versions of this service, and Microsoft NZ has long worked with and supported Dr Te Taka Keegan to add more Te Reo into Microsoft products.
If you’re reading this during Te Wiki O Te Reo Māori 2017 (or even afterwards) and would like to be involved in some capacity, feel free to reach out to me. The three easiest ways would be:
Drop a comment in the area below – I’d love to hear from you!
Much like the revival of ANZAC Day dawn service attendance from people across all generations, there is a growing number of younger people who are keen to learn Te Reo Māori. Just possibly, through the application of foresight and vision, along with a healthy dose of technology, we can connect these eager students with those that would be only too eager to pass on their aroha (love) for Te Reo Māori.
Team Rangatira that worked on the winning pitch for Te Whangai Trust
I’ve spent an interesting two days in Auckland as part of Kia Rite (Get Ready), our annual kick off to the financial year. This was my first kick off with Microsoft and I’ve appreciated the diverse activities we got to take part in. Usually at these types of events, it’s often very internally focused on the company strategy for the year, the product road maps and what our individual roles in this might be.
However, on day one we spent most of it at Orakei Marae with the entire company getting some lessons in Te Reo Māori – having come from the education sector in my previous role at St Andrew’s College this was very familiar territory.
The beautiful wharenui at Orakei Marae
Towards the end of the day we had a great session from Dr Ceri Evans, a forensic psychiatrist who has worked with, amongst others, the All Blacks, and he delivered some incredible insights into the role that pressure plays in reducing our decision making capabilities.
Finally, representatives from three NZ based NGO (Non Government Organisations) presented to us about their vision and work, along with some of the challenges they face currently. The three were:
These presentations set up what would happen on Day Two – in small groups we would have to create a digital transformation plan using some of the MSFT technologies and then deliver a 4 minute pitch to the NGO and members of the SLT who were judging, looking for the winning concept. My group were assigned to Te Whangai Trust.
Idea Brainstorming & Preparing the Pitch:
On Day Two, we had a more detailed briefing from the Gary and Adrienne Dalton the co-founders of Te Whangai Trust, who shared what they do. Some of the points (among the many they shared) that stuck out for me included:
“Trainees” are referred to Te Whangai by the Police, Ministry of Social Development and the Court system. These are often people who have been sentenced to community service.
They have built 4 “hubs” that are largely self-sustaining, where the trainees plant trees on leased land to help clean up water ways. They have also branched out into other paid service work e.g. mowing lawns of school grounds. Through these activities, they can fund 80% of their operational costs once underway, however they still need the start up capital, often granted to them from various Philanthropic Agencies.
They have a strong commitment to never turning away those referred to them, no matter what their challenges (these are often drug/alcohol related, violence, and chronic unemployment). 80% of those referred to them successfully complete the 13 week course.
Some trainees stay longer than the 13 weeks, with a number of graduates becoming some of the 28 employees who continue the mentoring of new trainees and help them off drug dependencies, gaining employable skills and, ultimately, a job.
Over 600 trainees have now completed the Te Whangai Trust program.
To receive more funding, the Trust was keen to be able to present how they were having a positive impact across the four identified pillars of: Cultural, Economic, Social and Environmental.
The team and I quickly identified the lack of robust data collection for new trainees at their entry into the program, and believed if this could be formalized through the use of templates, a base line of data could be established. Over the course of the morning we considered a range of technologies to achieve this, before settling on the cost effective tools of Microsoft Forms and Flow (both part of the Office365 suite the Trust already had access to) with the aim of using Azure SQL Services to store this data securely in the cloud.
The journey of a trainee through Te Whangai Trust, with our solutions mapped to it.
From this point, we actually jumped to the graduate trainees of Te Whangai Trust – to explore how could the Trust keep in touch with them, track their progress once they had exited the program, and collect key data points that could be fed back into the SQL database. This additional data was critical as we proposed running Azure Machine Learning Services over this data to create very detailed profiling of the trainees, allowing for greater personalisation of pathways, along with earlier intervention for those trainees identified as being particularly at risk.
To achieve this, we explored the idea of creating an App (likely developed in Xamarin to be cross platform) that graduates of the program could use to keep in touch and update their progress. Our thinking developed quite quickly to introducing the use of this app to trainees during the onboarding process and allowing them to add more data as trust was established over the first few days and weeks of their involvement.
Around this time we also decided to shape our pitch around a Māori whakatauki (proverb) and we chose the following:
Tama tu tama ora, tama noho tama mate
An active person will remain healthy while a lazy one will become sick
This linked in with the founders of Te Whangai and their messaging that the Government currently pays over $6 billion per year to people on benefits. By getting some of these men and women active in planting trees and positively impacting on the environment, they would in turn become healthier people across the four pillars we talked about above (cultural, social, economic, environmental).
The 4 minute PowerPoint Pitch
Gamification & Personal Development:
It became apparent to the team that if we were to use an App to generate this critical data, we had to get both current and graduate trainees to want to enter data into it. Two of the key ideas that really drove us were:
Gamification within the App – this was the ability to generate “streaks” based around certain activities or behaviours e.g. the number of consecutive workdays they had planted trees, or the number of days they had been sober or employed.
A sub idea from this was the use of badges – as various milestones were reached, digital batches would be awarded and these would be visible in both the App and also shareable on social media so wider whānau and trainees could celebrate this success. This, we felt, was instrumental in generating both stronger engagement but also contributing positively to the cultural and social pillars.
Personal Development – the idea here was to push notifications to trainees and graduates based off the data being collected and the insights generated from the Machine Learning analytics. For example, if a graduate updated their profile to say they had just had a baby, the app could push to them parenting advice or look to connect them in with relevant agencies such as Plunket.
A connected idea here was the ability to have trainees update their mental well being status e.g. happy, stressed, depressed, suicidal. This could be linked to a feature where they could trigger an SOS alert that would be pushed out to their wider Te Whangai Trust community, with the aim that this network would then reach out to the individual and start to offer mutual support to them.
The 4 Minute Pitch:
I was nominated within the team to deliver the pitch to the judges, and this was going to be across two rounds, with the pitch consisting of 4 minutes of presentation and 2 minutes of questions from the judges. It was quite a challenge to deliver our entire concept in under 4 minutes, with the cut off time being strictly enforced.
7 groups had worked on pitches just around the Te Whangai Trust concept. Gary and Adrienne Dalton, along with an SLT member were going to judge these pitches and select two to send through to the final
6 groups, representing the top two from each NGO, would pitch their 4 minute idea to a number of executives from Datacom, Intergen and Microsoft.
The stakes were pretty high for the NGO – the winning pitch would result in that particular NGO receiving USD$15,000 of funding.
After a few practice runs, the team provided some great feedback on refining the presentation, and I gave it a go in round 1, where we were fortunate to be selected as one of the top two.
We then relocated to Datacom Auckland where I repeated the presentation as the second pitch. It was fascinating seeing some of the ideas and technologies being pitched by the other groups that had worked with OMG Tech and Tuilaepa Mentoring Trust – all were of a really high quality. At the conclusion of the pitches the judges retired for 10 minutes to decide which idea they liked the best.
Happily for Team Rangtira, the judges decided our ideas were the best (they particularly loved the gamification elements we promoted) and therefore awarded the USD$15,000 to Te Whangai Trust. As a team, we were really thrilled to have been able to contribute to this successful outcome for Gary and Adrienne and know the money will be well used to try and implement a variation of our Pitch.
This was my first involvement in a HackFest. Even though these typically involve some form of coding up a product, this process was more about creating an idea that could be refined at a later date but could deliver significant improvements through digital transformation. Being involved was great and being part of the winning team was an awesome way to finish off Kia Rite. Additionally, it’s fantastic that Microsoft give employees three days a year to volunteer and help organisations with the skills we possess, it’s a great way to put action to the Microsoft vision of:
Our mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.
This week Aotearoa New Zealand celebrates 
