Te Ao Oracle: Embracing Te Reo Māori and the Treaty in Tech

As Aotearoa New Zealand continues to shape a uniquely bicultural digital future, NZOUG is exploring how our Oracle community can better reflect the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the richness of Te Reo Māori.

Technology doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It shapes — and is shaped by — the people, cultures, and values around it. As the New Zealand Oracle community, we believe we have a responsibility to embed the principles of partnership, protection, and participation into the way we build, code, deploy, and lead.

What the Treaty Means in a Tech Context

Te Tiriti o Waitangi isn’t just a historical document — it’s a living framework that guides our shared future. In a digital world, that means:

• Partnership — Collaborating with iwi, hapū, and Māori developers and organisations to ensure Māori voices are involved in tech decision-making.

• Protection — Safeguarding taonga, including data sovereignty and intellectual property, and ensuring that Te Reo and mātauranga Māori are respected in digital spaces.

• Participation — Actively supporting Māori involvement in the Oracle ecosystem — from database professionals and developers to architects and decision-makers.

Where Te Reo Māori Meets Oracle

Incorporating Te Reo Māori in user interfaces, reports, dashboards, and applications isn’t just a nice-to-have — it’s part of building inclusive systems. Whether you’re developing an APEX app for a local council or configuring Oracle Analytics for a kura, enabling bilingual features is both respectful and practical.

Some things we can do as Oracle professionals include:

• Supporting UTF-8 and right font rendering for Te Reo Māori macrons (tohutō)

• Offering Māori language options in applications

• Using correct pronunciation in demos and presentations

• Learning basic Te Reo terms relevant to our work

• Encouraging diversity in our hiring and project teams

What NZOUG Is Doing

NZOUG is committed to growing a more inclusive and representative tech community. That includes:

• Creating blog and group content that reflects Te Ao Māori

• Inviting Māori speakers and leaders into our events

• Promoting Oracle training pathways for rangatahi Māori

• Exploring how our own governance aligns with Treaty principles

This is just the beginning. We want to hear from you — Māori tech professionals, allies, developers, and community leaders — about how we can better uphold these values in our work and our events.

Join the Conversation

We invite you to be part of this kaupapa. If you have ideas, feedback, or want to collaborate on making Oracle technology in Aotearoa more biculturally grounded, reach out via www.nzoug.net or join the conversation in our groups.

Nā tō rourou, nā taku rourou, ka ora ai te iwi.

With your food basket and my food basket, the people will thrive.