The global connectivity enabled by smartphones is contributing to the decline of indigenous languages everywhere. On average, one indigenous language dies every 14 days. While New Zealand’s te reo Maori has seen an increase in revitalisation efforts, learning opportunities remain limited. Just 3% of the population speak te reo fluently.

As a Kiwi company and leader in technology, Spark - New Zealand’s largest telco - was in a unique position to help and deliver on their purpose: to help all of New Zealand win big in a digital world.

Our vision was to provide Kiwis with a more accessible and easier way to learn te reo Maori than ever before.

Our goal was simple: encourage Kiwis to download the app Kupu, (the Maori translation for ‘word’), and explore the world around them with it.

With the arrival of European settlement in the 1800s, the primary spoken language of New Zealand remained te reo Maori. But by the 1860s, European settlers (Pakeha) were the majority population and predominantly spoke English in their communities.

Te reo Maori was increasingly confined to Maori communities which lived separately from the Pakeha population. Speaking te reo was officially discouraged and suppressed in schools to ensure that young Maori assimilated with the Pakeha community as per the New Zealand Government’s policy at the time.

In the two years since Parliament passed The Maori Language Act 2016, te reo revitalisation efforts have seen a large uplift, but there are still significant barriers to fully empowering Kiwis with accessible learning opportunities.

In order for Kupu to be shared with New Zealand successfully, it needed to come from Maori (not just developed for Maori). Kupu was built in close consultation with Maori artists and academics to ensure authenticity. Our partnership with Te Aka has also delivered audio pronunciation guides – a powerful feature that encourages non-native learners to speak the language with confidence.

Kupu is an app that instantly translates the world around you into te reo Maori. Powered by Google Cloud Vision and Translate APIs, with knowledge from Te Aka Maori Dictionary, Kupu uses Machine Learning to understand objects in your photos and translate them into te reo Maori, instantly. It serves up the most likely translation and audio pronunciation, then provides options for what it detects in the image. It also lets the user input words and make corrections, so the app is constantly learning and iterating.

Kupu puts bite-sized language learning in the palm of every smartphone user in New Zealand in an engaging, visual way –ensuring free, equal access to education at all levels for universal literacy.

The merging of an indigenous language and modern technology has created an innovative mobile learning experience that will continue to evolve and improve over time, delivering better te reo Maori learning outcomes.

Our remit was to influence an ‘All of New Zealand’ audience. With the benefit of being one of New Zealand’s largest mobile providers, the opportunity appeared obvious: the answer was already sitting in 3.8 million Kiwis’ pockets.

It is well known that language learning benefits greatly from the reinforcement of vocabulary and concepts through pictures, so Kupu’s image-based learning outputs are not only fun, but effective. This coupled with the convenience of smartphones becomes a powerful and versatile learning tool.

And so the Kupu app was our answer designed to make te reo learning easy and accessible for everyone. And with Maori Language Week, we had an opportunity to reach and engage all New Zealanders with a mobile experience that tapped into a widespread pride of and growing desire to embrace NZ’s Maori culture and traditions.

The proposition was simple: Take a photo, learn a language.

As Kupu is a modern way to learn an indigenous language, we used the theme of raranga, (traditional Maori weaving), as design inspiration – a metaphor for the galvanising effect of learning the language of another culture.

We embraced black and red as synonymous with Maori culture, and commissioned the image of a Maori girl with a traditional moko kauae tattoo – the perfect mix of modern and traditional.

During Maori Language Week, we blanketed Kiwis with contextually targeted translations of everyday objects wherever they turned, heroing Kupu’s camera viewfinder to transform every placement into a Kupu experience. On bus backs, we translated an image of ‘bus’ to ‘pahi,’ like you’d see using the app.On TV and YouTube, people watching cooking shows saw translations for ‘herbs’ and ‘bread.’

The SOW was approved in November 2017. The app went live in the App and Google Play Store on 8 September 2018.

In the first two weeks, Kupu had 120,000 downloads, 2 million image translations and 2.5 million audio plays (word pronunciations), exceeding download targets by 650%.

Kupu was the #1 trending app on the App Store and Google Play stores. The app garnered an estimated earned media reach of 6.4 million.

Interaction rate was 4,372%, meaning the average user took 15 photos and played 29 audio clips.

While it’s difficult to track shifting attitudes to language, 58% of our audience said Kupu positively affected how they view Spark, and 70% believed Kupu raised the profile of te reo Maori.

Kupu recently won the Supreme Award at the 2018 National Maori Language Awards. To win the Supreme Award by the very body who are committed to te reo Maori revitalisation in New Zealand is possibly the highest honour in this area.