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Download AudioThe head of a Māori technology start-up says valuable lessons in data sovereignty can be drawn from a failed encounter with a global tech giant.
The ‘Say it Tika’ campaign by Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori, Vodafone and Google for Māori Language Week 2017 came up with more than 67,000 place names, with the idea that the list would be used to develop an app to help people pronounce them correctly.
Google eventually informed its partners its voice platform could not recognise te reo Māori, so it could not deliver the solution.
Peter Lucas Jones from Te Hiku Media, which has been using the archives of the Kaitaia-based radio station to develop Māori language voice recognition tools, says sometimes big tech is more interested in marketing its products than helping indigenous people.
“The big learning thing here is we need to help ourselves. It’s really important for us to look at how we can breathe life into these ambitions and I think that’s about aligning the kaupapa with Māori people working on the ground, and the reo is as much in the practice as the practice is in te reo, and in iwi radio we’re practitioners,” he says.
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