Tātai Aho Rau Core Education are the recipients of the Digi Matihiko Award at the Māori Language Awards.

The organisation received the award on Friday night, along with their partners Grok Academy, an Australian edtech charity with an international remit, whose mission is to educate all learners in transformative computing skills, as well as increasing cyber security awareness to create safer online spaces for learners.

The award is for a major project to translate and adapt an online cyber-security course into te reo Māori. Creating these cyber-security resources for kura reflects a commitment to improving digital safety for all learners in New Zealand.

The resources and courses are available for ākonga in years 6 - 13, and offer accessible resources for learners in New Zealand. The Australian-created suite of online cyber-security resources, Cyber Skills Aotearoa was also aligned with our local NZ curricula.

The Māori language team at Tātai Aho Rau created a resource that empowers rangatahi Māori to engage in IT through te reo Māori.

Sample terms from Pūkenga ā-Ipurangi Aotearoa: taupānga / app; haumaru ā-ipurangi / cyber-security; kupuhipa / password; mūreretia / hacked; mōhiohio tūmatanui / private information; kīangahipa / passphrase; whakamuna / encrypt. 

“Creating cyber-security resources for kura reflects our commitment to improving digital safety for all learners in Aotearoa. As it is in all languages, the cyber-security vocabulary in the project is complex," says a Grok Academy spokesperson.

Tātai Aho Rau was approached by the Australia-based cyber-security organisation Grok Academy to ‘migrate’ their cyber-security platform to New Zealand schools. Other partners include BNZ, ASB, AWS, NCSC and Grok.

“This may be a world first - a broad, online cyber-safety programme in an indigenous language,” says Tumu Whakarae Hana O’Regan. “We plan to continue to create resources about our online environments in te reo Māori.

Grok has gained valuable insights about working with the Māori language This experience has offered transferable knowledge to diverse contexts in Australia. It is hoped the partnership can open doors to further work such developing resources tailored to Pacific communities and the ongoing promotion of this suite of resources.

Tātai Aho Rau Core Education is a national not-for-profit working in education and communities.

"Our mahi supports learners who sit at the margins," says CEO Dr Hana O'Regan. "We produce impactful products and deliver services that focus on supporting teachers and leaders to remove equity barriers for learners."