“There’s only four percent Pasifika in the technology industry. Four percent after all these years you know, it’s not adding up” – Muliagatele Danny Leaoasavaii.
The New Zealand technology sector is one of the country’s largest and fastest growing driving innovation, jobs and economic growth however, not many Pasifika are in this space.
Muliagatele Danny Leaoasavaii leads the South Auckland Creative & Tech Hub based in Wiri. Their goal is to gear up our Māori and Pasifika students for the digital future.
“It’s about exposing, creating awareness around technology for them; the different industries, pathways of how they get through but also seeing themselves in there,” Muliagatele says.
So for two days they hosted local students taking part in the ‘South Auckland To The Tech World 2’ and it’s already sparking a lot of interest.
‘Aleki Funaki from the Pacific Advance Senior School is enjoyed the hands-on experience.
“We have to make a contraption of a little vehicle like, lets say, a toy car. I reckon it’s a good experience ‘cos getting into robotics could be like a new opportunity for me in the future,” he says.
Another keen student is Kelly Sakuru from Onehunga High School who is enjoying the interactive exercises.
“I’ve never thought about this tech world as much as I have other than like, AI and stuff so this experience has helped me look more into job opportunities and stuff since it’s my last year.”
Unsure of what to do after high school, Madison Leilua took up a coding course two years ago. Now she wants others to follow.
“So we are just doing front end design, UX design, all that stuff, not the hard back end stuff like software development. That was a bit too hard for me but just all the designing features for websites that’s what I’m doing currently,” Leilua says.
Navigating the web can be daunting. Lualuai Maiava, a Youth Pastoral Care worker, wants to empower youngsters to be safe online.
“If we think of our young people, they have access to technology, phones, smart phones, the internet but it’s not filtered,” Maiava says.
“It’s just out there and you know we want to make sure they are given the right tools to manage anything that they come across that might be challenging or triggering to them.”
For Muliagatele Danny Leaoasavaii, In this fast paced world, his hope is that our people won’t be left behind.
“My hope is the awareness, the awareness is created and they get inspired and they can see us Pasifika and Māori in this space and they can believe they can be in there too,” he says.
“That they get inspired and they can see us Pasifika and Māori in this space and they can believe they can be in there too.”
*Some quotes have been edited for clarity
