From IT engineer to analyst to film maker and most recently to founder of Māori owned tech company.
An interest in computers, design and storytelling has seen him to from IT engineer to analyst to film maker and most recently to founder of a 100% Māori owned tech company called Arataki Systems. Using a proximity based phone app, users can unlock authentic historical content and stories in places of cultural significance around Aotearoa New Zealand, helping share and preserve the culture of Māori story telling for future generations. He is incredibly passionate about Māori storytelling, and the importance it holds for our future generations in terms of the transfer of knowledge, the continuation of our narratives, and the retention and maintenance of our culture. I think one of the greatest challenges Te Ao Māori currently faces, is the gradual and inevitable loss of much of our stories, knowledge and history with the passing of our kaumatua (elders). It’s up to us to play a part in the capture, collation, retention and care taking of our stories. Arataki Systems build digital storytelling platforms that connect people with our culture.
Founded in 2016, we are a tech company based in Tauranga, New Zealand, wholly owned and run by Māori tech entrepreneurs. We have career backgrounds in Māori storytelling, tech and Iwi relations. We’ve developed NZ’s first proximity activated cultural content delivery platform. We offer a virtual self-guided fully immersive cultural experience. Our platform seamlessly connects users with cultural content and information, at the right time, in the right location.
Our goal is to bridge the cultural gap between communities.
Our mission is to share 1 million stories.
Lee is Founder of a community-based initiative called Te Reo Wainene o Tua (www.trwot.org.nz), a collective of high profile te Reo Māori advocates who are reviving the oral tradition of Māori storytelling. This is where he developed a deep passion for the art of Maori storytelling. Lee is a current board member of Native Land – a Canadian not-for-profit organisation that is on a mission to map the globe according to Indigenous geographical boundaries and knowledge. Lee currently resides in Tauranga, with his whānau and 3 cats.