One aim of Mātauranga is to teach kids about the connection between Polynesian voyagers and today's Team New Zealand crew. Photo / Supplied
One aim of Mātauranga is to teach kids about the connection between Polynesian voyagers and today's Team New Zealand crew. Photo / Supplied
Sir Ian Taylor's new project that teaches kids about Polynesian voyagers' migration across the Pacific Ocean thousands of years ago is personal.
The 2019 Innovator of the Year and founder of Animation Research, the company behind America's Cup graphics, was near 70 years old when he heard his ancestors' story.
"My ancestors were part of the greatest human adventure story of all time, and I'd never heard it before," he said.
He learnt about the migration journeys of his Pākehā ancestors at school in Raupunga, but he was never taught about the journeys of his other tūpuna, his Polynesian ancestors.
Sir Ian Taylor returns to his school, where both his parents taught, for the Mātauranga project. Photo / Supplied
So he and a team of people set off to create the website Mātauranga with the hope of inspiring kids to take up science, engineering, technology and maths subjects by telling them these stories.
"In this story of migration across the Pacific ocean, you realise that was science, technology, engineering and math.
"You couldn't have made those voyages using the stars, understanding astronomy, astrology, building a state of the art waka, you could not have done that without being hugely advanced," he said.
"One of my first objectives was to show Pasifika and Māori that this thing called to innovation and STEM is in their DNA. It's there. It's always been there."
Taylor is just one of a team of people behind the project, including film producer Anna Marbrook, waka voyager Noenoe Barclay-Kerr and IT businessman Dennis Chapman, who donated $500,000.
The video series is led by voyager Noenoe Barclay-Kerr, who in this video, myth-busts a famous painting. Photo / Supplied
The project is also indebted to the celestial navigators and voyagers past and present that have kept the tradition alive, he said.
"We owe all of this to them. All I did was have an idea, and as I started to did it I found all these people who have kept it alive, including Tā Hek Busby.
"We stand on the shoulders of these people. Celestial navigation that could've died, that could've totally disappeared, but they've kept it alive."
Taylor said the Polynesian voyagers are linked to the America's Cup sailors and crew today through a shared "number 8 wire" way of thinking.
"That number 8 piece of wire thinking runs all the way through Team New Zealand's thinking, but that number 8 piece of way sits under Mātauranga, it's a way of thinking differently, and that's in our DNA.
"Now we're sitting here with Te Rehutai, powered by the wind at 100km an hour, going all the way back to the Waka Hourua."
The website includes teaching resources and activities, with Taylor's goal to get it into schools across New Zealand.
Taylor had a number of lightbulb moments that lead to the idea of Mātauranga.
Taylor recalled watching a lecture by Professor Lisa Matisoo-Smith, who described the migration of Polynesians across the Pacific thousands of years ago as the greatest untold story of human migration in history - yet he didn't know about it.
He also recalled watching an intermediate school concert called He Waka Eke Noa.
"Here I am, Māori, 70 years old, I didn't even know what 'he waka eke noa' meant. I'd never heard of Mātauranga; I'd never heard of Tupaia. There were 28 nationalities in this intermediate school, in the concert, they sang in Samoan, Tongan, Māori, English and all of them with this glow," he said.
"And I just thought, our future is in great hands, all we have to do is get the story to them, and they'll do the rest."
