Dr Karaitiana Taiuru is an interdisciplinary Māori academic and activist. Areas of interest include: Artificial Intelligence (AI) Ethics; Colonisation; Data Sovereignty; Genomic ethics; Property Rights & Tikanga Māori.

Dr Karaitiana Taiuru PhD - JP

TRUSTEE

NGĀI TAHU, NGāTI RāRUA, NGātI KAHUNGUNU
NGāTI HIKAIRO, TūWHARETOA, NGāTI HAUITI
NGāTI WHITIKAUPEKA, Pākehā

My career spans the past 28 years, originally in the ICT industry and with Māori property rights. I have been involved as an advocate and proponent for digital Māori rights, cultural appropriation, data sovereignty/digital colonialism, te reo Māori revitalisation with technology, Māori representation and Intellectual Property Rights for the past 24 years. In more recent times raising tikanga Māori and mātauranga Māori awareness issues and academic research focusing on Māori cultural rights with gene research.

I am well versed in Māori culture, tikanga, te ao Māori and how those rights and beliefs are applied to the digital and biological sciences.

Some career highlights include:

  • Author of Compendium of Māori Data Sovereignty (2022)
  • Creator of Hapū and Iwi Data Sovereignty Data Sets (2021)
  • Author of Māori Culture Guidelines for Brand Owners and Marketing (2021)
  • Author of the worlds first Indigenous ethics guidelines for: AI, Algorithms, Data and IOT (2020)
  • Author of a major ICT/Social media Dictionary of the Māori Language with over 375,000 translations (2016)
  • Compiled a list and analysis of Māori ICT organisations, thus expelling many industry myths and concerns (2016)
  • Author of the definition “Digital Colonialism” (2015)
  • Analysed .govt.nz web sites for their inability to recognise te reo Māori
  • Major leader to push for the Creative Commons licenses to be translated into te reo Māori (2015)
  • Ensured a sensitive list of Māori names were reserved in the .kiwi domain (2013)
  • Proposer and advocate for macrons in .nz domain names and .māori.nz (2010)
  • Author of the charter to create the USENET group .nz.soc.maori (2003)
  • Author of the successful .maori.nz proposal which lead to the world’s first Indigenous language domain name (2002)
  • Creator of the free Māori spell checker Te Ngutu Kura (2001)
  • iwi.nz moderator (2000)
  • Author of the first electronic Māori Dictionary Te Reo Tupu, a compilation of all major dictionaries. (1998)
  • Ensuring Māori could be written on computers and the web, Māori language tools, a myriad of publications (1997)

Bryson Hill

ADVISORY

Kelly Solomon

TRUSTEE - CHAIR