A Journey Through Identity, Innovation, and Indigenous Futures
I was that kid who took apart the toaster to see how it worked. Who read sci-fi like scripture. Who believed quantum physics was just another way of describing whakapapa. I’ve always lived in a multiverse, not the Marvel kind, but the real one. A world where learning never stayed in one lane.
Raised by a Ngāpuhi mother and a Ngāi Tūhoe father, both of whom had survived a generation that was systematically stripped of their reo and tikanga, I was immersed in culture but not saturated in it. I wasn’t raised on the marae, but around it. My parents made a conscious choice, rightly or wrongly: prepare me for the world – out there.
And so they handed me two tools: a book, and a toolkit.
Mā te pukapuka hei whakatū i te hinengaro, mā te kete taputapu hei whakatū i te ringa.
The book sharpened the mind, the toolbox trained the hands.Everything I know, I learned on the job: from wiring circuits to leading strategy. From fixing hardware to rebuilding systems. Education wasn’t a destination. It was a current I was always in.
Te ao hurihuri: Education as a Spiral, Not a Line
My learning journey was anything but linear. From one of Aotearoa’s first kōhanga reo, to early kura tuatahi, to māori units in mainstream secondary schools, kapa haka, science fairs, tech expos, and eventually the world stage. It was a patchwork of exposure, not immersion. Of movement, not stagnation.
And yet, everything stayed connected.
Ko te ako tēnei, he porowhita e kore e mutu.
Learning, for me, is a circle without end.This is why I believe the future of education will not be found in timetables or test scores, but in relational systems that honour identity, curiosity, and contribution. Systems that adapt to learners, not just force learners to adapt to them.
Whānau and Whakapapa: Rejection, Return, and Reclamation
I was adopted at birth. Loved fiercely. Raised intentionally. And yet, like many adoptees, I carried questions.
Years later, I found my Scottish, Italian, English, birth mother. She had never stopped thinking of me.
I found my father’s family next. Ngāti Tamaterā, Pare Hauraki, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Porou. I was rejected at first. But I returned. And the second encounter was different.
I never met my father. He had passed before I found him. But I visited him in our urupā in Paeroa. His sons, my brothers, had faced tough lives. I realised I may have been the lucky one.
Ehara i te mea he māmā, engari he mea tika kia rapu i ōku pakiaka.
It wasn’t easy, but it was right to seek my roots.All of this matters. Because it makes me the kind of servant-leader who understands the spaces in-between. Who doesn’t lead from entitlement, but from empathy.
Pūtahi Matihiko: The Bridge Between Tech and Tikanga
I have spent three decades navigating my way through science, technology, infrastructure, education, economic development and emergency response. I’ve worked on fibre cables and cloud strategy. I’ve taught quantum logic to rangatahi and data governance to governments.
But I’m still that kid in the garage with the melted toaster. Still that wahine in her garden with tonka trucks and lego bricks.
I don’t separate science from whakapapa. In my world, AI and oriori can co-exist. Quantum mechanics and karakia belong together.
He āra mātihiko, he aronga wairua hoki.
Every digital path must also be a spiritual one.Through kaupapa like Kaunuku (our digital inclusion framework), Matihiko 100, Te Kūwaha o Ureia, and Te Ao Matihiko, I’ve seen what happens when we weave tikanga into every line of code. We stop designing for inclusion. We start designing for belonging.
I serve not because I want to be seen, but because I remember what it feels like to be invisible.
I lead not because I believe I have all the answers, but because I know what it means to ask the right questions.
I do this, like many of us, for our mokopuna.
Kia māia, mō rātou, mō te hunga e haere ake nei.
Be bold, for them, for those yet to come.Let’s stop asking how to fix education, and start asking how to free it.
Let’s stop designing for compliance, and start designing for contribution.
Let’s walk alongside our mokopuna in their multiverses, not just ask them to fit inside ours.
Because the future of education isn’t western. It’s woven.
And it lives in all of us who have ever dared to learn while serving.