DATE: Wednesday 30 June 2021
TIME: 10am-11am
Learn about how the face-paced world of social media and other technologies are already having an influence on Māori research. Whether you’re a TikTok aficionado or still struggling to post a status update on Facebook, this is for you.
In this online panel discussion, we’ll hear from tech-savvy scholars, Dr Acushla Dee Sciascia (Massey University) and Associate Professor Te Taka Keegan (University of Waikato), about the opportunities and issues of using social media as a tool for Māori research and researchers.
All welcome! Students, researchers, community members.
Host
The Professional Excellence Series of online webinars is hosted by Associate Professor Meegan Hall who is the Assistant Vice-Chancellor (Mātauranga Māori) at Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington and a member of Ngā Pae o Te Māramatanga’s Research Leadership Team.
THE PANELISTS
Dr Acushla Dee Sciascia (Ngāruahine Rangi, Ngāti Ruanui, Te Ātiawa) works at Massey University and is also founding Co-Director of Māpuna Consultants, an Indigenous consultancy business underpinned by Māori values and philosophies. Dee has a strong background in research and evaluation around Māori and Indigenous kaupapa. Her PhD thesis was about Facebook and the rise of technological online and social media platforms pervading Māori society and culture. She is also co-lead for the Mātauranga Māori programme in the Resilience to Natures Challenges National Science Challenge.
Associate Professor Te Taka Keegan (Waikato-Maniapoto, Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Whakaaue) is Associate Dean Māori and works in Computer and Mathematical Sciences at the University of Waikato. He has worked on a number of projects involving the Māori language and technology. His PhD thesis was called ‘Indigenous Language Usage in a Digital Library: He Hautoa Kia Ora Tonu Ai’. He was also involved in projects about the Māori Niupepa Collection, Te Kete Ipurangi, the Microsoft keyboard, Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office in Māori, Moodle in Māori, Google Web Search in Māori, and the Māori macroniser. In 2009, Te Taka spent 6 months with Google in Mountain View as a visiting scientist assisting with the Google Translator Toolkit for Māori. Further work with Google led to Translate in Māori. In 2013, Te Taka was awarded the University of Waikato's Māori/Indigenous Excellence Award for Research. In 2017, he was awarded the Prime Minister’s Supreme Award for Tertiary Teaching Excellence.
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