Kurutao Entrepreneurial Leaders Expedition

Kurutao is a free expedition created for Māori tauira (students) at Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland. In 2025, Kurutao will take participants on a four-day haerenga through Tāmaki Makaurau and Te Tai Tokerau, visiting leading Māori-led ventures and innovation hubs. It’s a journey through Aotearoa’s dynamic innovation and entrepreneurship landscape, where Māori values, world-views, and leadership are at the centre of the experience.

This programme brings together Māori-led ventures, purpose-driven innovation, and success stories from both Indigenous and corporate worlds. Whether you’re passionate about starting a business, solving community challenges, or exploring future pathways, Kurutao is your invitation to lead with purpose.

Through immersive workshops, inspiring site visits, and whanaungatanga with like-minded peers and mentors, you’ll uncover how innovation can be a force for transformation, grounded in tikanga and te ao Māori.

Be inspired: Meet trailblazers who are using innovation to uplift Māori communities and create meaningful impact.

Grow your skills: Develop practical tools to explore your ideas, shape your entrepreneurial mindset, and act with confidence.

See what’s possible: Visit start-ups, social enterprises, and ventures that blend Māori and Western approaches to innovation.

Build your network: Connect with Māori entrepreneurs, investors, and change makers from across Aotearoa.

Lead change: Take the first step toward becoming an innovation leader in your whānau, hapū, iwi, or community.

See what the 2024 Kurutao cohort got up to!

Kurutao is open to Māori students from any faculty at Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland who are:

• Keen to explore innovation and entrepreneurship
• Open to new perspectives and experiences
• Ready to connect with others and grow
• Identify as Māori
• Currently enrolled at the University of Auckland
• Based in Aotearoa during Semester One, 2025

Workshops: Interactive sessions with Māori innovators, entrepreneurs, and ecosystem experts.

Study tour: Four-day haerenga through Tāmaki Makaurau and Te Tai Tokerau, visiting leading Māori-led ventures and innovation hubs. Across both locations, tauira will explore the breadth and depth of Māori innovation today, spanning digital storytelling, AgriTech, clean tech, cultural branding, impact investment and values-led entrepreneurship.

Networking opportunities: Meet industry leaders, role models, and like-minded tauira to grow your community of support.

Kurutao showcase: Celebrate your learnings, share your journey, and inspire others.

Key dates:

• Mihi whakatau and pre-workshop 1: Wednesday 4 June
• Pre-workshop 2: Tuesday 1 July
• Study tour: 7–10 July (Tāmaki Makaurau and Te Tai Tokerau)
• Kurutao showcase: Tuesday 12 August

Full participation in all sessions is required.

Join Kurutao to start your journey to becoming a leader of innovation rooted in Māori values, driving change in Aotearoa and beyond.

Kurutao, meaning an inverted arrowhead, symbolises agility, strength and purpose. Gifted by Whare Tū Tauā expert Michael Steedman, the name embodies the leadership, resilience and vision this programme fosters.

Launched in 2024, our inaugural expedition took tauira across Tāmaki Makaurau and Gisborne, engaging with Māori entrepreneurs and ventures leading the way in kaupapa-driven innovation. Read about the 2024 Kurutao programme.

In 2025, the programme is pivoting. We’ll begin in Tāmaki Makaurau, connecting with Māori entrepreneurs, digital innovators, creative leaders and corporate ecosystem partners at the heart of Aotearoa’s largest city. From there, the study tour continues north to Te Tai Tokerau (Northland), where students will engage with Māori-led enterprises rooted in whenua, whānau, and regionally driven innovation.

Grounded in kaupapa Māori, this immersive experience continues to celebrate the many ways Māori shape enterprises that are future-focused, culturally anchored, and transformative. This event is for aspiring Māori innovators and entrepreneurs from all faculties of the University of Auckland.

Applications close Sunday 4 May 2025.