Opinion: Important to thrive with the tools we are given

Te Maori columnist and chairman of Te Tatau o Te Arawa, Rotorua Lakes Council partnership, Te Taru White. Photo / File

Ka pu te ruha, ka hao te rangatahi.

The old net is cast aside, the new net goes fishing.

We are on the cusp of significant inter-generational change like no other fuelled in large part by the development and rapid expansion of technology into which my children's generation and particularly my mokopuna have been born.

This is a long way from my days as a university student in 1973 where I did a first-year paper on Fortran computer programming on a computer framework that would fill a house but with a fraction of the power of my mobile phone today.

Had I realised the potential of what I was doing, I would have stayed with this technology and who knows – become the Bill Gates of Aotearoa instead of the Te Taru White of Mourea. I feel sorry for Bill Gates.

Seriously though the notion of robotics, artificial intelligence, the speed and pace of communications and the impacts on science research itself while fascinating is scary.

Scary to the extent of the unknown - where is this heading to? What does it mean to us as people and the values that make us who we are?

Sir Apirana Ngata in 1949 answered this beautifully in an autograph book of schoolgirl Rangi Bennett, one of our own in which he wrote:

"E tipu, e rea, mo nga ra o tou ao, ko to ringa ki nga rakau a te Pakeha hei ora mo te tinana, ko to ngakau ki nga taonga a o tipuna Maori hei tikitiki mo to mahuna, a ko to wairua ki to Atua nana nei nga mea katoa.

"Thrive in the days destined for you, your hand to the tools of the Pakeha to provide physical sustenance, your heart to the treasures of your ancestors to adorn your head, your soul to God to whom all things belong."

This was a vision for youth nearly 70 years ago as the old net was making way for the new.

The ink has never dried on this page and hopefully it never will.

It is a succession plan, an enduring mantra for the youth of today and those yet to be born.

As the old net is cast aside and the new net goes fishing, let us not forget who we are, where we have come from and what our ancestors have left us. It will serve us well.

Te Taru is from Te Arawa, Tainui and Ngati Porou descent and is the chairman of Te Tatau o Te Arawa, Rotorua Lakes Council partnership. His website is http://tetaruwhite.com.