Harnessing people and technology for 'GOOD'
It is where Indigenous world views meets technology to create something new.
Catalysing systems change. What this means to me is something I learned from my grandparents and parents, to make real and lasting change you have to keep changing the system, whether in one go or bit by bit, from within and externally.
It is what they, as Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand, understood, when their 'system' of Te Ao Māori changed, forcibly, through year after decade of British law and custom, and then was nearly fully taken over from the 1840's onward. Colonisation. A system will only reflect and protect those that have created it. At this time the English law was created only by english men who were moneyed, and that is who it protected and served.
Māori, who were all about embracing changing, without being replaced by it, agreed on two written documents that the British requested they have, not for our sake, but for the British sake. The first one was in 1835, He Whakaputanga, the Declaration of Independence of the Māori tribes of Niu Tireni, (a transliteration of New Zealand), simply so our waka(boats) could travel and be recognised as allies of the British. The second was in 1840, Te Tiriti o Waitangi, The Treaty of Waitangi, the first immigration document giving permission to the British to come and settle and be respectful of the Sovereignty of Māori, and that the arm of British law would be allowed to rule over it's own citizens. Essentially that they would be good guests while in Aotearoa, New Zealand. And that the British, in today's parlance, were the preferred customers to Māori, as opposed to the French and Americans who were busy trading with Māori also.
It was a real example of catalysing systems change, especially for the British who were wanting to be free from their limiting, class system society, and develop a new power sharing system with Māori. For Māori, it was no threat to their sovereignty, they already had room in their tikanga, their processes, of lending power for reasons and seasons.
But the British couldn't help themselves, this opportunity of real change was passed over by business as usual, and the deep, individualistic, binary 'my way or punishment', prevailed. There was no change for them, but the world was absolutely changed for Māori.
So, back to my grandparents, in light of how negatively Māori were treated by these laws and institutions, how they lost their land, their language, their way of life, the hardship, racism, sexism, and the exclusion from positions of power in the Pākehā system, they made one of the hardest decisions of their life so their children, their future, my mother and aunties and uncles might prevail. They they decided to fully immerse them into that Pākehā system, as another way to catalyse change in that system, language, mind, world.
They left Taitokerau, the far north, in the 1920's, way before the 'urban drift', for Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland. Here my grandfather, Paihana Taua, nō Ngāti Kahu, was a translator for Native Affairs, and my nana, Ihapera Henare, daughter of Taurekareka me Hera henare, nō Ngati Hine, was raised to be very political, thirst for all knowledge, and most importantly, be independent in her thinking! She was on Te Ropu Wahine Maori Toko i te Ora, the Māori Women's Welfare League and any other board you can think of for the betterment of Māori.
They assumed, 'our children are Māori, they can never not be,' so learn the Pākehā ways fully and catalyse change from within their systems. That is why Māori wanted one of their own to become doctors, lawyers, teachers, be in Government, to be Māori in these places, and effect some Māori thinking and values into these institutions, for them to understand the importance of Māori. It was an inclusive AND-AND proposition, not an either/or, even though they lived in the binary Pākehā system of either our way or punishment.
They could not see how not having their own reo me tikanga Māori might affect my mother and aunties and uncles, as first Māori to Epsom Girls and Auckland Boys, winning english and french and sporting prizes and at first being accused of cheating, except they kept winning year after year. And then my mother, Mairehau Tui Taua, got offered a scholarship to Oxford University in the UK, in about 1949. The pinnacle of Englishness. She'd done it! She'd won at their own prized areas, English, English History, even French. And now she was going to go to the mothership and hopefully continue a tradition of Māori who had made such great impressions on the Monarchy and others they met in Britain. Change that system. Get inside and change their ways.
The long and the short of it was she never took it up. Her reasoning then, which made sense was, if they treat us like this in our country, how will I be treated in theirs. She was never to know that the 'English' or British that ended up here were not the top table calibre, they were at best middle management if you like, ones that were never going to amount to much in the UK, and so thirsted for power over here, in Aotearoa. And that over there they were more open minded, interested, she certainly wouldn't be kept small as she was here. That's a whole other tale.
But the next way my grandparents understood catalysing systems change was realising that because our history was written about by Pākehā, Māori were written about in such a negative and untrue way. What they wrote was from that spectator view, never understanding what or why something was happening, just looking and making assumptions based on their own values and world views.
So when my grandparents were approached to open up the doors of their community to a new Pākehā researcher, they saw an another opportunity to catalyse a systems change.
They realised if they could not write their own histories to be published by the mainstream, then the next best thing was to be able to show that author who Māori really were, as much as they could. Trust was desperately needed before they opened their own doors let alone anyone else's, and so they said yes only if she met with them once a week, learned te reo Māori (Māori language), and learned about their ways. She accepted. That person was the now Dame Joan Metge, the first female anthropologist in Aotearoa, New Zealand. She started to write about Māori differently than had been, with more understanding and less patronising and condescension. Dame Joan still credits them and other Māori for the transformation they made in her life.
But change isn't linear. Sometimes it even looks like its taken steps backwards. And each generation has their views. So I was the next generation. The desire for more Māori to be lawyers had gotten in and off I went to lawschool. Not in the traditional way, school, university. No, never one to be able to stay within the lines of conformity I had taken a huge detour, gotten into trouble etc and went to lawschool as a last resprt trying to sort my own life out, and I had a baby. But there I was, with a fantastic Te Rākau Ture, Māori law student's association and off went our generation wanting to change systems.
I was disenchanted by it all at the end. Me being me, I graduated but personally didn't subscribe to that view of making change on the inside. I believed then, if you get paid by a system you owe it. So I made a decision not to be that one catalysing change from within. All credit to those that did though, for they certainly have catalysed much change!
I left and catalysed change in other ways, seemingly small ways, like being a mother who raised her children to know and feel proud of who they were, putting them into kura, speaking the reo that my mother and my generation couldn't, or in my own business at the time making children's bed wear with our Māori language on it, selling it into the homes of people that never normally engaged with Māori, to then working for a Māori television production company that dealt with issues affecting us. Systems change takes all forms, and it's about one's whole life, not just a public or professional one.
And fast forward to a few years ago when I did my Master's for Digital Tech futures, a Māori lens on AI. As I've written before the concerns for bias in AI and incomplete data made me see it's the same problem that my grandparents recognised, it's what I realised about the legal system, and now it's about this new technology. Like a legal system, or history, AI will only reflect and benefit those who create it, who make the decisions for the research, the ethics, its use and deployment. And that those excluded will somehow be harmed, and with this technology it will be exponential!
The solution it seems is, as my grandparents knew back in the day, include all people who will be affected by it, from the inception to its end. In harnessing the diversity in people AND technology we may achieve what AI experts and watchdogs have been calling for, a truly responsible and representative AI.
It is where Indigenous world views meets technology to create something new.
And who else vitally needs to be included to catalyse systems change? Our children and young people, OUR FUTURE. For like the environment, it's their future we will surely hurt if they are not included in its creation and development, from now! But it's not just about including them, it's about the much needed change in the western educational system. It's a system that has been around since the 1st Industrial Revolution of the 1800's, yet we are talking about AI as the 4th Industrial revolution in the new millennium!
It's about time there was real change in that system. It has never served so many of our children with their many-varied learning styles. So it is this fact, and ironically the technology that is demanding this change, AND will also make it possible.
Now finally this brings me to Māori Lab and the project we want to find investment in.
Imagine boutique education, the curriculum, the lesson plans, the subjects that are co-designed with our children and their teachers and community, for them, with real pathways to relevant education, internships and employment.
The 3 year project is the active research to co-create a Te Ao Māori AI and VR curriculum with and for tamariki Māori, Māori students, and their kaiako, teachers, and hāpori/community, starting in Taitokerau/Northland of Aotearoa NZ, the poorest region of the country.
What does this mean?
What could AI, science, research, any digital technology, anything in fact, look like, be used for, if we brought our Māori children and Te Ao Māori values and processes into the space?
Including our children in technology at the outset is the catalyst of change.
Māori Lab is going to SOCAP, the 2024 summit who's mission statement is catalysing systems change, with a project we would like impactful investing in. We are a team of mainly Māori, including an AI professor from Auckland University of Technology, a VR specialist, professor at Te Herenga Waka, Victoria University Wellington, other Māori in the digital tech space, and some kura, schools in Taitokerau, Northland, New Zealand. And to have pathways to further education, internships or employment in AI or VR.
We want our children involved from the outset, to help create how the curriculum should be designed, what elements, what technology to use, and how they should be taught that would be more engaging, relevant to their needs, to their communities' needs. There are high non-attendance in schools, the highest it's been. There are so many factors to this. But including them and their teachers, and the wider whānau/family and community, could be a solution. It could develop some sense of pride and responsibility to see their own, and other children's learning be achieved, and what achievement looks like to them.
It's using technology not just as the subject, but as a tool to aid more learning, like through Virtual or Augmented reality. It's getting kids to have hands on experiences, building, testing while learning. And it's showing what Te Ao Māori can bring to the science, the research, the business of AI, of digital technology and beyond.
The skills they would develop would be so much more than theory. It's putting responsibility onto them, that they have an important part to play in this systems change. They will learn how to engage with so many different types of people, ages backgrounds.
It is showing them that who they are as Māori, our values, our ways of doing things has a valuable contribution to make at this time in history where the world is in a lot of turmoil, politically, socially, environmentally, economically, and in part because of digital technology. They will understand what the world is about and how locally they can make a great contribution.
The old status quo isn't working, we need to catalyse a systems change.
It's a multiple up skilling opportunity, an AND/AND/AND approach that could create something more, something better, responsible, representative technology.
If you think catalysing systems change in your business or organisation is needed and you need a fresh perspective, let's see what you and I at Māori Lab can create together.
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