Established in 2014, Digital Natives Academy is a kaupapa-driven, award-winning non-profit that exists to spark curiosity, grow imagination, and empower rangatahi to transform their lives, and the world around them.
Digital Natives Academy exists to inspire the next generation of digital leaders. Our kaupapa, our vision is built on three pou: design, culture, and impact. With a foundation in Te Ao Māori, the Māori world, and a focus on creative technology, we empower young people to shape meaningful futures, honouring their identity, uplifting their communities, and protecting this world we call home.
Our goal is to support rangatahi, young people, who show talent, tenacity and potential for leadership. We do this to inspire them to become makers and innovators of technology, rather than users and consumers of it.
Creating a Nation of
Bold & Creative Thinkers
We are building communities of fearless, future-focused thinkers who draw on their unique perspectives to tackle the world’s biggest challenges, from climate change to the rise of artificial intelligence.
Over the years, DNA has become more than a platform for skill acquisition and career pathways, it’s become a sanctuary from an often cold, uncaring world where the outliers of society can find whānau, friendship and most importantly a sense of belonging.
Whose Future? Whose Intelligence?
At Digital Natives Academy, we believe in bold, creative thinking grounded in curiosity and responsibility. For more than a decade, we’ve worked to empower rangatahi, young people, not just to use technology, but to shape it, to become the architects, critics, and guardians of the digital worlds they will inherit.
With the rapid acceleration of artificial intelligence, we find ourselves at a critical crossroads.
AI is not a neutral force. It is shaped by the values, assumptions, and agendas of those who build it, and too often, those builders do not reflect our communities, and do no hold our values. They do not carry our stories. They do not design with our mokopuna, with future generations in mind. And they do not ask the questions we would:
- Whose intelligence is this?
- What worldview does it serve?
- What is lost in the automation of human decision-making?
We are told that AI will solve everything. That it will make things faster, smarter, more efficient. But faster for whom? Smarter by what measure? And at what cost?
At DNA, we reject the narrative that we must simply adapt to whatever technology arrives. Instead, we teach our young people to ask hard questions, to challenge power, and to imagine alternatives rooted in care, culture, and collective wellbeing.
Artificial intelligence should not be built in our image, it must be built with us and by us, or not at all. Because the future doesn’t belong to machines. It belongs to those skilled enough to shape and navigate them.
