A Dunedin start-up has benefited from a business student's investigation.

Kylie Jackson is the founder of a new game development company, the Ōtepoti Games Company based in Dunedin. Among other games projects the business is developing educational games for schools to use. Kylie wants to include te reo Māori educational games, and to incorporate co-design principles in the development process.

Business student Devansh Patel worked with Kylie to investigate the concepts for her business. He conducted an online survey of school principals and teachers, undertook archival research, and also interviewed te reo teachers and cultural experts. Devansh's investigation confirmed that there is likely to be a demand for te reo educational games, due to growing interest in learning the language amongst non-Māori people as well as Māori. 

Devansh recommends that the games should be community-based; when learning te reo it is particularly important to learn the culture as well because tikanga provides context for the language. An advisory board comprising teachers, students, kaumātua, developers and artists would be an effective way to achieve a co-design process during iterative development. Devansh's findings will inform the strategic planning for Ōtepoti Games.

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