Kurutao Entrepreneurial Leaders Expedition

Monday 29 June to Friday 3 July 

Go on a journey of self-discovery, make new friends and learn from the movers and shakers driving Māori innovation.

Kurutao is a free expedition created for Māori tauira (students) at Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland. In 2026, Kurutao will take participants on a five-day haerenga through Tāmaki Makaurau and Te Arawa (Rotorua and Bay of Plenty), visiting leading Māori-led ventures and innovation hubs.

Kurutao brings together Māori tauira from across faculties creating a diverse rōpū of students with different interests and perspectives. It’s an exploration through Aotearoa’s dynamic innovation and entrepreneurship landscape, where Māori values, worldviews, and leadership are at the centre of the experience.

Along the way you’ll hear from inspiring speakers, visit innovative organisations, and meet founders of Māori-led ventures, and young professionals working in a range of innovation roles. You’ll see firsthand how Māori values and entrepreneurial thinking come together in practice.

This programme brings together, 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.

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. Gain insight into Māori enterprise across areas such as technology, primary industries, social enterprise, impact investment and iwi development.

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 intersemester break 2026

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

Study tour: Five-day haerenga through Tāmaki Makaurau and Te Arawa, visiting leading Māori-led ventures and innovation hubs. Our hosts will offer insight into their mahi. 

To give a sense of the types of experiences, last year’s haerenga to Te Tai Tokerau included opportunities to connect with:

• Jade Kake, Māori architect working in papakāinga and community development
• Te Piha Niha and the NGEN Room, delivering digital tech programmes for Northland rangatahi
• North Drill, led by Aida and Bronson, building a large-scale whanau owned infrastructure business with over 50 employees
• Stuart Otene from Kaikohe Berries and Ngāpuhi Asset Holdings, sharing insights into iwi led enterprise and regional development.

We’re excited about the programme we’re developing this year touring Tāmaki Makaurau and Te Arawa!

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.

Wednesday 3 June – First workshop/Mihi Whakatau
Wednesday 24 June – Second workshop
Monday 29 June – Friday 3 July – Expedition – Auckland and Rotorua
Tuesday 28 July – Final presentation

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. 

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.

Read about the 2025 Kurutao programme.

Applications close 10 May

If you have questions about the programme, please contact cie_programmes@auckland.ac.nz

The Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship provides a world of opportunity to participants so that they can stand-out and create value through innovative careers and start-up creation.

CIE is New Zealand’s leading University entrepreneurship centre, winning 14 international awards since 2020.