Lasting Connections: Setting up Innovation Hubs in Te Moana-a-Toi

During 2020, six new Innovation Hubs are being set up in Te Moana-a-Toi as part of a new digital enablement project. What will be taught at these hubs? A single person can’t tell you, and here’s why. 

The warm Te Moana-a-Toi sun filters through the trees. A group of students are kneeling around their kura veggie garden. They move aside the leaves of a kūmara plant and a trailing tomato vine. The sun catches a red bunch of tomatoes, but the students aren’t looking at the fruit. They’re holding a long sensor, hands in the soil.

These students are taking part in a digital technologies programme run at a new innovation hub – one of six being set up in Te Moana-a-Toi (Bay of Plenty). The sensor being placed in the soil was developed by Digital Future Aotearoa, and it collects and monitors soil data and growing conditions. But the “Innovation Hubs” – the working name for the new initiative – is not a Digital Future Aotearoa programme, a fact emphasised by DFA General Manager, Michael Trengrove. “We’re in the Bay of Plenty because we were invited by Toi Kai Rawa in 2019 to talk about delivering digital enablement programmes with them in  their communities,” he says. “What we came away with was a new understanding that we couldn’t create a one-size-fits-all programme and roll it out – we had to listen to and learn from the community.”

Top: A child plants the sensor for the Electric Garden which is one programme that will be available at the Innovation Hubs. Bottom: The success of community-run clubs such as Huiterangiora Digitech in Tolaga Bay encouraged thinking about the new Innovation Hubs. Photo: Kirialana Whakaangi

What grew from that visit is Innovation Hubs – a community and Māori-led project in Te Moana-a-Toi. The project is supported by a governance board with representatives from Toi Kai Rawa – whose purpose is to advance the prosperity of Māori across the wider Bay of Plenty, Te Awanui Huka Pak, a 100% Māori owned company founded in 1984 by a collection of Māori trusts, Spark Foundation, and Digital Future Aotearoa. The project has also been funded by Workday Foundation and Microsoft Philanthropies. Brought together, these organisations create a powerful collaboration.

“The true power of Innovation Hubs
is the clear intention that each hub
be community driven.”

But the true power of Innovation Hubs is the clear intention that each hub be community-led. While the governance structure is set, the programmes to be delivered at each hub will be flexible and decided on by the hub’s community. Hubs will be run from the local kura, set up in a staffroom or a school hall, and the Innovation Hubs Regional Coordinator Te Ra Keno will work with each community to agree on which education programmes will be of benefit. The goal: to create rawa (wealth/prosperity), confidence and self-determination as people learn the skills needed to navigate the digital world. 

Te Ra Keno wanted to be involved in the Innovation Hubs project because she is passionate about initiatives that develop Māori. A Bay of Plenty local, Te Ra grew up in Tauranga and went to a Māori immersion school. She moved to Wellington to study law at Victoria University with the goal of getting experience and qualifications. After a few years of study, she realised her heart was back in Te Moana-a-Toi and that she needed to return and serve her community. “Māori development drives me,” she says.

Bay of Plenty. Photo: Siobhan O’Connor

While DFA programmes such as Code Club Aotearoa, Electric Garden, She Can Code and teacher training in digital technologies will be available, the Innovation Hubs will provide education on using tech in everyday life – such as how to connect to the internet, send an email, or use a printer. “It’s about trusting communities to know what they need to flourish,” says Trengrove. “When we first started talking about our programmes, such as learning to code or how to use the Internet of Things, the community let us know that other types of programmes also had to happen to teach digital fluency.” 

While the hubs will be run from the community’s kura, the programmes will be available to everyone: parents, grandparents and the entire community will learn alongside their tamariki. Alongside Digital Future Aotearoa, other providers will teach digital enablement programmes at the hubs. “We’ve started to ask ourselves – what skills does a person need to be a digital citizen?” says Trengrove. “If you can’t participate online it’s hard to have a voice in society.” 

“What skills does a person need
to be a digital citizen?
If you can’t participate online
it’s hard to have a voice in society.”

Te Ra also emphasises the way the Innovation Hubs can support tino rangatiratanga for Te Moana-a-Toi Māori through creating a space that is community-led, but also by developing digital skills that lead to new opportunities. A key goal of the programme is to inspire tamariki and rangatahi Māori to see themselves in digital technology roles, and show them the opportunities available to them in the region.

Currently, Te Ra is deep in the project planning phase as well as making connections in the community and with the first five kura. “In the Bay of Plenty around 44% of youth are Māori, and there are sixty-three schools and kura that are Māori immersion or have bilingual students,” says Te Ra. “That’s sixty-three communities we can build up.” Her excitement is palpable and irresistable. “Even if we have ten people involved with each hub – that’s over 600 people I’ll be able to provide development for,” she says.

“Māori STEAM is the way
of the future … to be navigators
and innovators is in our genes.”

One aspect that attracted Te Ra to the position was the way it involves project planning – “I love spreadsheets,” she says – but also a natural feedback loop through her connection with each community. “Working on the ground means I will be able to see the effectiveness of the decisions we make,” says Te Ra. “Māori STEAM is the way of the future,” she says. “For Māori, to be navigators and innovators is in our genes. Being able to provide this avenue for innovation, some stepping stones to get ahead, is really energising. It’s a dream job.”

While the work for 2020 is focused on setting up the first five hubs, the long term goal is to establish a large network of hubs and digital technology educators in Te Moana-a-Toi, with the educators working across different hubs as needed. “Innovation Hubs is about making lasting connections that support digital education,” says Trengrove. “It’s not about DFA – we’re here to support the process. We’re just one connection. Lasting connections happen organically inside a community, and that’s what creates real change.”