Avaiki TechAcademy
Stage one · open to all

The eight foundation maps

Short digital technology courses, free to any young Cook Islander on any of the twelve islands, at school, after school, or at home. Two to four hours each, taken at your own pace, on your own device.

Every map ends in something you have made. Not a quiz.

What a map is

You can see the whole route, and where you have got to on it

We call a course a map because on the Galaxy Maps platform the whole route is laid out in front of you as stars and the lines between them. Every star is a mission. You can see what you have finished, what is next, and how far the voyage runs.

8foundation maps
2–4hours each
$0to learners and families
12islands, all of them
Three ways in

In class, after school, or on your own

The maps are published open and free. Whether a school uses them is entirely the school's choice, and no young person needs a school to be involved at all.

In class

A teacher runs a map with a class

The school gets the map, a facilitator guide, a view of its own students' progress and a direct line to the captain. The teacher does not need to know the subject. The teaching is in the video, and the teacher's job is the room.

After school

A club, supported by us

A lunchtime or after-school group, on school grounds or anywhere else in the community, with a local facilitator on the ground and the captain joining live from a distance.

At home

On your own, whenever you like

Sign up and work through them yourself. No school, no club, no permission needed. We expect this to be the largest group.

These are Avaiki Tech Academy's own technology curriculum. They are not aligned to an NZQA standard and carry no NCEA credit. They cover ground the national curriculum does not.

The curriculum

The eight maps

Every map stands alone. Take any one of them by itself and you finish with something real. Taken in order, each one picks up what the last one made: the machine first, then AI on your side from map 2, then code, then an address of your own from map 4 that everything after it publishes to. AI is used in every map, and a log of where it was wrong runs from map 2 to the end.

A voyaging canoe in deep space, its hull opening into an ordered lattice of glowing folders
MAP 014 hours

Your Machine and the Internet

What your machine is doing and how the internet actually works, seen from the terminal. What is inside the box and how fast it really is. Files, folders and git. Passwords, two-factor, backups and scams. Then the network: your own address, a route traced off the island by satellite, a name turned into an address, a web page pulled raw, and your own machine serving a page to the next desk.

You makeA one-page machine card, a solved terminal treasure hunt, a route map off the island, and a file of your own speed-test readings in your first git repo.

An immense face of stars offering glowing answers, one thread bending away false and burning red
MAP 023 hours

Working With AI

Getting real work out of a frontier model, and knowing when it is wrong. What a model is, in ten minutes. Asking badly and asking well, side by side. Watching an agent work on your own machine, one approved step at a time. Then catching it out against facts you measured yourself, and starting the log you keep for the rest of the voyage.

You makeA bad-prompt and good-prompt pair with both answers, one real thing done with the agent, and the AI log, started here and kept through every map.

Builds on map 1

A canoe inside a great ring of glowing gears and ribbons of light doing work by themselves
MAP 034 hours

Make It Do Something

Making the computer do the boring part. Change a script that already runs, then write the four primitives yourself: count, decide, repeat, name a block. Read your own speed-test data and make the program answer a question. Then build a small tool someone else can use, with AI writing alongside you while you read, run, break and fix.

You makeThree small programs, a program that reads your own data and answers a question, and a terminal game, quiz or tool in a git repo.

Builds on maps 1 and 2

The sail of a voyaging canoe unfurled into a vast luminous page with an island forming inside it
MAP 043–4 hours

Your Address on the Internet

A real address that is yours: a page served from a file you wrote and pushed with git, not a profile on someone else's platform. Be the server first, then build the page, move your map 3 program into it with a button, and publish. Everything you make after this lands here.

You makeA personal page live at a real address, with your program running on it.

Builds on maps 1 to 3

A lit atoll far below, a beam descending from a ring of satellites, a canoe following the signal to its source
MAP 052–3 hours

Finding Out

Putting one question through many sources and ending with an answer you can defend. Search properly: past page one, into primary sources, in Maori as well as English. Then put the same question to a panel of AI assistants, make them argue, and score them against what search can prove.

You makeA two-sided brief on a national issue with every source named, and a scored panel transcript.

Builds on maps 1 to 4

A vast luminous chart rising out of a nebula sea, a canoe sailing small beside it
MAP 062–3 hours

Numbers Are Arguments

Turning a question into numbers, and not being fooled by someone else's. Measure something real for a week, your own screen time for instance. Find the number behind a public claim. Chart your data honestly, then chart it to lie in both directions, and spot the same tricks in the news.

You makeA dataset you collected, an honest chart and a liar's chart side by side, and a claim with its limit.

Builds on maps 3 and 5

A canoe's sail spread wide under a brilliant star, light running down its panels
MAP 073–4 hours

Draw It, Then Make It Instructions

Turning a drawing into instructions a computer can follow. Draw it on paper, trace it with the pen tool, open it as text and change a number. Hand it to AI to extend, animate it on your page, then make it a brand: logo, wordmark, palette, fonts and a one-page brand sheet exported for print or clothing.

You makeA paper sketch, its clean SVG, an animated version for the web, and a brand sheet with a logo for print or clothing.

Builds on maps 3 and 4

A canoe with a ribbon of glowing film panels streaming away across the nebula
MAP 083–4 hours

Tell It in 90 Seconds

Telling any message in 90 seconds with picture and sound. One script, two films: shoot and cut the real one, with sound done properly, then feed the same script to an AI video generator. Show both to the real audience and let them decide. Consent for every face, real or generated.

You makeA 90-second script, a real film, an AI-generated film from the same script, and the audience's verdict.

Builds on map 7

What comes next

Entry to the Academy

The foundation maps are open to everybody and always will be. The Avaiki Tech Academy is the next stage, and it is invited.

To be considered for a cohort place

  • Five of the eight maps, and they must include Your Machine and the Internet and Make It Do Something.
  • One thing you made on your own, not set by a map, just something you wanted to build.
  • An invitation.

Our captains pick the navigators who show promise, the ones who keep going and make things nobody asked them to make. It is a person's judgement, never a score a computer works out.

Get in touch

The maps are in production

Tell us you want them and we will let you know the moment they land, whether you are a young person, a parent, a teacher, a school, an island council, or an organisation that wants to support the work.

Email us Back to the programme