Iwi in the frame with hi-tech investment

Ngati Kahungunu Iwi has bought into computer graphics company founded by one of its own - Animation Research Ltd founder and principal Ian Taylor. Photo File

Ngati Kahungunu Iwi has bought into a pioneering computer graphics company founded and run by one of its own in a unique deal targeting improving numeracy and literacy.

The 40 per cent buy-in was confirmed last night by Animation Research Ltd founder and principal Ian Taylor, who is from Northern Hawke's Bay locality Raupunga and who has taken the company to the World with its innovative use of graphics in TV coverage of sports.

Founding Taylormade Media in 1989 and ARL the following year, he and the Dunedin-based companies burst into global limelight using its innovative technology in coverage of the 1991 Americas Cup regatta in San Diego.

It has branched into numerous other fields including high-end professional golf tournaments and international cricket, where its ball-tracking is used not only for spectator benefit but also to aid umpires in close-call decision-making.

Taylor said the companies had not sought outside investment, but it was automatic after Taylor had earlier this year spoken of the need for iwi throughout the country to invest in technology and the job policies and Tomoana asked: "What can we do?"

The result has been an investment which will enable the company to form its own research and development unit, where it had otherwise had to usually taken staff out of other jobs and assignments.

It was "much more" than being just about the Ngati Kahungunu affiliations of Taylor, who started on the road to fame and fortune as a lead singer in charts-making late 1960s Wand, early 1970s Wairarapa band Kal-Q-Lated Risk and who, after graduating in law at Otago University, became a well-known TV presenter, of children's programmes Play School and Spot On, and New Zealand's Funniest Home Videos.

"I'm stoked," he said, reflecting on how he and Tomoana were in such total agreement that while the iwi's stake was "only 40 per cent" it would have "equal" voting strength, something which surprised lawyers in what became a no-problems agreement cleared in just a few weeks.

Born in Northland, his mother of Ngāti Kahungunu and Ngapuhi descent, Taylor grew-up in Raupunga and went to Masterton Catholic boys' school St Joseph's College, from where he left to join the band in 1967 and seeing it through to a place in the 1970 Loxene Golden Disk Awards final, where winners were solo artist Craig Scott (Let's Get A Little Sentimental) and group Hogsnort Rupert (Pretty Girl), despite the presence among the finalists of The Fourmyula and Nature, a No 1 hit which in 2001 was voted the greatest New Zealand song of the 20th century.

Taylor was inducted into the New Zealand Technology Hall of Fame in 2009, and was named North & South Magazine's 2010 New Zealander of the Year, and the Outstanding Maori Business Leader of the Year.

In May 2014 he was part of a team awarded a Sports Emmy under the category "Outstanding New Approaches - Sports Coverage" for development of an innovative mobile application for the 34th America's Cup.

In the 2012 New Year Honours he was bestowed with a CNZM for services to television and business, and this year there was another Emmy Award for the America's Cup use of the company graphics.

Tomoana, whose wife also grew up in the Raupunga area, at Mohaka, was unable to be contacted for comment.