An MIT and Unitec digital technologies graduate will explain how technology can help revive the Cook Islands language at an event in Ōtara on 9 August.

Marcel Teraimana, who also now works at MIT as a Student Life Guide – IT support at the Manukau campus library, will be one of three guest speakers at a talk to celebrate Cook Islands Māori Language Week which runs from 3 to 9 August 2025.

This year’s theme is ‘Ātui’tui’ia au ki te raurau a tōku matakeinanga – “Connect me to the offerings of my people’. 

Marcel Teraimana (foreground) with family in the Cook Islands

Currently, a Masters student at Unitec while working at MIT, Mr Teraimana, helped the Ministry of Education with an app called Pu’era which is used to teach Cook Islands Māori. He is also developing his own artificial intelligence chatbot for the same purpose.

Marcel is passionate about saving a language that he says “we’re on the verge of losing”.

“The Cook Islands, like a lot of islands in the Pacific is drowning in Westernisation. It’s the internet – social media, the media. It’s worse on the main Island of Rarotonga, but it’s also happening in the more rural outer islands like where I come from. But we can use technology to bring the language back,” he says.

Cook Islands Māori is listed as an endangered language by UNESCO. The country has a population of around 15,000 while 94,000 identify as Cook Islanders in Aotearoa – the majority living in Auckland.

Speaking to the NZ Herald, Professor Stephen May from the School of Māori and Indigenous Education at the University of Auckland said within the community in Aotearoa, only 7 per cent of those under the age of 15 can speak Kūki’ Āirani (Cook Islands Māori)

Originally from Mauke Island, Mr Teraimana came to New Zealand when he was 25 following his parents who moved a few years earlier. He started his academic career in 2021 when the Government offered fee-free courses during the COVID pandemic.

“At the time I was a bit sad because I had just lost my job due to the pandemic, but I just thought you have to move on. I started at MIT with a level 4 IT essentials certificate and this year I graduated with Bachelors in Digital Technologies – Networking.”

“I completed my Postgraduate Diploma in Applied Technologies at Unitec in the first semester this year and I’m now working on the thesis for my master’s from Unitec while I work at MIT.”

Mr Teraimana is currently completing his Masters in Applied Technologies at Unitec

His thesis, which investigates how machine learning can help to detect phishing emails, is on schedule to be completed later this year. After graduating, he is planning on continuing his studies with a doctorate at Unitec.

There will be celebrations throughout the country over the Cook Islands Māori Language Week. Mr Teraimana is speaking at an event called Noou nuku, noou nuku, noou teira – yours and mine, this is our day, at the Community Shed, 18 Bland Place, Ōtara from 11am organised by the Akatokamanava.