re
:
think
Winter 2013
12
HARKO BROWN had been gathering information
on traditional Māori games for years before he
decided, aged 39, to study for his Master of Sport
and Leisure Studies at the University of Waikato.
“My interest in ngā taonga tākaro was sparked by
my uncles back in the ‘60s and 70s, and as I learned
more, the more passionate I became and that’s what
brought me to university.” And his knowledge and
expertise has seen him write a book on the subject
and taken him around the world.
Harko’s masters degree focused on the role of
women in kite making, and ki, traditional balls
woven from flax and other vegetation and also made
from wood, pumice and kelp. His interest in manu
aute (kites) has taken him to Dieppe for the largest
kite festival in Europe and to Northern Italy for an
international festival there.
“Three of my uncles served in the Māori Battalion,
so on my way to the festival I decided to retrace the
Battalion trail, starting in Rome and heading north.
I met an old German soldier and he told me that
Māori had flown kites during the war, made out of
Italian flax, and they’d placed bits of shrapnel on the
end points before sending them into the air.” The
Germans said it was one of the few points in the war
where there was humour and the soldiers appreciated
it. “He said to me ‘we could’ve fired back but we
didn’t’; they could see the funny side and knew the
kites would never make a significant hit.”
Harko, of Raukawa and Ngāti Whātua descent is
a former chippy and secondary school PE teacher who
says he wrote his book
Ngā Taonga Tākaro
after being
“pestered” time and time again for information about
traditional Māori sport. The book covers more than
20 ancient games and sports – including poi, stick
games, kites, ball games and memory and board games.
Bringing old games back into play
The game ki-o-rahi is known around the world –
again through war connections because Māori soldiers
played it and taught the locals in France and Italy.
In the Far North where Harko lives, they’ve hosted
international tournaments and teams have travelled
to France, Germany, Italy, Poland and England to
play in tournaments.
Last year, in a project largely driven by Harko
and with support from the Bay of Island’s Whangaroa
Community Board and Far North District Council,
seven school communities got together and built the
country’s first public ki-o-rahi field including seven
fully carved, four-metre-high pou. It was officially
opened in February this year on land donated by the
Waitangi Trust Board.
The game, which is thought to pre-date rugby, is
undergoing something of a resurgence.
Harko gets to accompany a team to Ireland in
July – part of a year-long tourist event in the Emerald
Isle known as “the gathering”, where people who
are Irish-born, Irish-bred or Irish in spirit have been
invited from near and far for festivals in towns and
cities across the country.
They’re going to Ramelton in country Donegal
where The Gallaher International Summer School
is hosting a five-day sports festival and a ki-o-rahi
tournament will be played for the first time in Ireland.
Dave Gallaher, sometimes called the founding
father of All Blacks rugby and who captained
‘The Originals’ in 1905, was born in Ramelton in
1873, so there’s a strong New Zealand connection.
Harko was back at University of Waikato in April
to have his masters degree conferred. “It was good to
come back and thank all the people who’ve inspired
and encouraged me along the way,” he says.
harkobrown@gmail.com
HARKO BROWN: “Pestered” into writing a book on traditional Māori sports,
and now taking them to the world.
A Waikato University computer science
student has been awarded a Woolf Fisher
Scholarship, worth about $100,000 a year
for up to four years, to study for a PhD
in biomedical informatics at Cambridge
University in the UK.
Katie de Lange, just one of three
New Zealand recipients last year to be
awarded the scholarship, says Cambridge
is the perfect place to study her subject
because the university is home to the
Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, one of
the leading world centres for analysing
and understanding genomes.
Katie is particularly interested in
human genetics, and in developing
genome analysis techniques that could
help direct the development of new drugs
to tackle diseases like cancer.
“In Cambridge, I’ll be in the right place
to meet the right people in this field,” she
says. “Genetic data sets are massive, so we
get the computer to do the donkey work of
analysis using machine learning and other
high performance computing techniques.”
As part of her Bachelor of Computing
and Mathematical Sciences honours degree,
Katie has worked on an error detection
model for genetic data, under the supervision
of Adjunct Professor John Cleary.
Dr Cleary is also part of a team of top
computer scientists at Real Time Genomics
Inc which has designed a core suite of
high speed, error tolerant, proprietary and
patented search technologies for advanced
genomic analysis solutions. He says Katie
De Lange is an excellent choice for the
Woolf Fisher scholarship.
The Woolf Fisher Scholarship rewards
brilliant young New Zealand graduates
who possess leadership skills, boldness of
vision and exceptional zeal, keeness and
capacity for work – qualities admired by the
late Sir Woolf Fisher, co-founder of Fisher
and Paykel.
Dr Cleary says Katie is very determined
and interested in tackling challenging
problems. “She has demonstrated resilience in
the face of unexpected results and is clear in
her thinking and well organised in her actions.”
Katie’s a keen sailor who holds a Hillary
Scholarship for University of Waikato
students who excel in academia, leadership
and sports or the creative and performing
arts. She is also the recipient of a three-
month Google scholarship at the company’s
Sydney office, which she will take up before
she heads for Cambridge to start her doctoral
studies in October.
Advancing genome solutions
The Woolf Fisher
Scholarship
THE Woolf Fisher Scholarships were
established in 2003 by the Woolf Fisher
Trust and are now also supported by
the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust.
Up to three scholarships are awarded
each year to outstanding New Zealand
graduate students for doctoral study
at Cambridge University. The main
objective of the Trust is that Woolf
Fisher Scholars will become leaders
in their fields and during their careers
make a significant contribution
to New Zealand. The scholarships
are administered by Universities
New Zealand – Te Pokai Tara.
KATIE DE LANGE: Going to Cambridge – the “perfect place” for her PhD.
Best practice
commercialisation
SOUTH AFRICAN researchers and technology
transfer professionals are getting assistance from
the University of Waikato’s commercial arm,
WaikatoLink, to explore the commercial potential
of their research and innovations.
WaikatoLink is helping South Africa’s
Department of Science and Technology achieve its
goal of commercialising more research from public
research organisations in South Africa.
In recent months WaikatoLink has facilitated
two ‘Creating Value from Innovation’ workshops
in Johannesburg.
Workshop facilitator Nigel Slaughter, General
Manager Commercial at WaikatoLink, says the
workshops were designed to help researchers
communicate their ideas to industry in a way that
clearly conveys the value they might offer.
“We show researchers how they can build
partnerships with companies, leading to research
funding for the development of their ideas, a greater
understanding of industry problems and how
they could help solve them and a way to get their
innovations to the marketplace.”
During the workshops possible collaboration
opportunities for the university and for New Zealand
companies to work with South African researchers
were also identified.
WaikatoLink worked with South Africa’s
National Intellectual Property Management Office
(NIPMO) to host the workshops. NIPMO is pulling
together experts around the world to establish a best
practice commercialisation industry in South Africa.
The aim is to help develop the country’s knowledge
economy to boost economic competitiveness and
job creation.
info@waikatolink.co.nz