Recognition for those promoting Maori language and culture in business

Wednesday, 12 July 2017

Kristin Ross and Hohepa Tuahine's business Pipi Ma, a range of Maori dolls to normalise Maori in the home, are up for a Matariki business award.

Four business leaders are being celebrated for helping Maori culture become more prominent in New Zealand business.

The Matatriki awards are back for its second year to honour and celebrate Maori achievement in eight categories.

The four dolls Pipi Ma dolls that each have unique characteristics related to Maoridom.

Hohepa Tuahine and Kristen Ross of Pipi Ma, Grant Stracker of Straker Translations, and Mavis Mullins of the Poutama Trust are the finalists for the te tupu-a-nuku award for business and innovation.

The winner will be announced on Friday July 21 at the Auckland War Memorial Museum, which will be broadcast on Maori television.

Kristin Ross and Hohepa Tuahine with their children and RNZ journalist John Campbell.

Straker Translations chief executive Grant Straker is up for a Matariki business award for this contribution towards advancing Maori in technology careers.

* Professor Rawinia Higgins nominated for Matariki Award

* Miraka win Matariki business award**

Mavis Mullins was nominated for the te tupu-a-nuku award for her work with the Poutama charitable trust.

Kristin Ross and Hohepa Tuahine

Kristin Ross and Hohepa Tuahine's Maori speaking doll range, Pipi Ma, launched in November last year and sold out within 36 hours.

The dolls have been shipped all over the world including to Asia, the United States and Qatar.

'We feel excited, a little bit dumbfounded, because we've only just launched Pipi Ma so to come up under business and innovation as a finalist is pretty exciting,' Ross said.

The couple want the toys to help move te reo out of the classroom and marae and into everyday life.

'The only place you see and hear Maori is in your home or school so we thought if we really want this to become a natural and normal language then a toy could normalise it,' Ross said.

The couple didn't speak Maori until learning it at university but were adamant their own children wouldn't miss out.

The four dolls: three-year-olds Pipi and Titoki, four-year-old Hura, and one-year-old Pitau Potiki, each say their own set of phrases when the hand is squeezed, and they all sing their own song.

This year, the couple will launch a second line of dolls called the Mihi range and a Pipi Ma web series.

'The Mihi range is just pint-sized Pipi Ma dolls. They teach basic greetings and farewells in the Maori language, how to say thank you, goodbye, how are you, and my name is. Those are targeted at people with a little or no grasp on the language and also the tourism market.

'We thought it was a way to bring the Maori language to the world.'

The animated web series was funded by Maori broadcasting funding agency Te Mangai Paho and will launch in November.

Grant Straker

Grant Straker is the co-founder of Straker Translations, a global translation marketplace matching translators to appropriate jobs.

'Our staff are from a range of different cultures, I don't think you could have a more diverse group. Across out team we can speak about 47 languages,' he said.

But his main drive is to motivate and make it easier for Maori to choose technology as a valuable and rewarding career path.

'Historically, Maori have done a lot of manual jobs and a lot of those are going to be replaced with technology. So it's really important Maori are represented in this category,' he said.

Straker felt humbled by the nomination and was proud to represent business in the finals.

'It's a pretty neat award and it's not like lot of other awards where you put your own entry in to get in the mix, somebody else nominated me for this. I had no idea I was up for it to be honest.'

Motivating Maori to be involved in technology was about changing perception, he said.

'In the 80s and 90s perception around Maori in businesses wasn't great and I think now iwi and Maori entrepreneurs who are building global innovative businesses are really strong. We all understand that's a positive contribution.

'I agree that relative to the percentage of the Maori population there are few in technology. But things are starting to change, there are a whole heap starting to come through but still not enough. So you need to accelerate that and make sure there are pathways for young Maori.'

Straker offers an internship programme giving school leavers, students and graduates an opportunity to gain experience in the technology sector. He also started the Coding for Kids programme in 2014 to help Auckland schools teach computer coding.

Mavis Mullins

Being named as a te tupu-a-nuku award finalist comes after a long line of recognition for Mavis Mullins.

Mullins is up for the award for her work with the Poutama charitable trust, which provides business development services to Maori.

The Dannevirke businesswoman became the second Maori woman to be inducted into the Business Hall of Fame in March, helped establish the 2degrees mobile network, leads a successful family shearing firm and has held several key directorships, including at Landcorp and Massey University.

Mullins said she was proud of the Poutama trust's work to foster the development of small to medium Maori businesses across New Zealand.

'Our job is to provide the environment where they can succeed, but they're the one that create the magic,' she said.

The trust created 'cluster groups', bringing together Maori businesses in the same industry to support and learn from each other, such as the group of traditional Maori food producers.