Our People, Our Businesses, Our Tools
An AI and systems programme built for Maori and Pasifika businesses
Why this exists
AI is about to widen a gap that is already too wide.
The businesses with money and time are already using these tools. The ones without are being told AI is coming for them, which is not the same as being shown what to do about it.
Most Maori and Pasifika businesses we meet are small, hands-on, and busy. They do not need a webinar. They need someone who has run a factory floor, sat in their kitchen, and can build the thing with them.
Vern is Cook Island Maori. He spent time at HTK Group supporting more than 300 Maori and Pasifika SMEs, and has advised 300+ businesses since 2005. This is not outreach. It is our own people, and it is personal.
How it works
Four principles that shape every session.
Start where the business is
Not where a textbook says it should be. Most of the owners we work with are running the job and the business at the same time. The first session is about what is actually in front of them this week.
AI that earns its keep
Quoting, scheduling, invoicing, follow-up. The admin that eats a Saturday. We build the tool, we show them how it works, and they keep it running without us.
Teach it, do not just do it
We journey alongside, sharing the skills and the reasoning, so the business keeps improving after the engagement ends. A dependency is not a result.
Success that lifts the whanau
Business success should strengthen communities, not just individuals. That is the whole point of doing this work with our own people.
Where this is up to
Being built, and looking for partners
The goal is a funded programme supporting 300 or more Maori and Pasifika businesses, with Te Puni Kokiri and the Ministry for Pacific Peoples as the funding partners we are working towards.
It is not funded yet. We are saying that plainly rather than dressing it up, because the businesses this is for deserve straight talk.
In the meantime the work happens one business at a time, and we are keen to hear from anyone who wants in: business owners, iwi and Pasifika organisations, and anyone with a view on how a programme like this should run.
Kia orana, talofa, kia ora
If your business could use a hand, or you want to help build this, let us have a korero.