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The radio station that decided te reo Māori was worth building for

Kaitāia, Northland, New Zealand · Peter-Lucas Jones

When Silicon Valley's speech AI had no room for te reo Māori, a small radio station in Kaitāia built its own model in ten days, with 2,500 community members donating their voices, and made sure the data stayed theirs.

"We want to be the developers of it too." — Peter-Lucas Jones, chief executive, Te Hiku Media, to RNZ

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35 stories and counting

Lens:

Domain:

Community · Agriculture
Kingsley Jasi didn't wait for an extension officer. He sent a photo instead.
Chiradzulu, Malawi
Social Impact · Agriculture
David Hughes put the expert in the phone farmers already had
Kenya / Tanzania (built at Penn State, USA)
Org Spotlight · Work and Craft
The 8,500 IKEA workers who got bigger jobs instead of redundancy notices
Global (Ingka Group; program 2021-2023)
Breakthrough · Environment
Racing to read the rainforest's library before it burns
Barro Colorado Island, Panama; expanding to Madre de Dios, Peru
Ordinary People · Government and Civic
Heather Minor didn't just fix a job she dreaded. She tells clerks across the country how to fix theirs.
Long View, NC, USA (pop. ~5,300)
Ordinary People · Government and Civic
Helen got her eye contact back. Two directors made sure she could keep it.
Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames & Oxfordshire County Council, England, UK
Adaptation · Art and Culture
He wrote himself a song in a voice his illness had taken
Bristol, England, UK (performance at the ElevenLabs Summit, London, Feb 11 2026)
Ordinary People · Disaster Humanitarian
Jorge Bastidas didn't wait for the government. He and his team built the missing-persons list in three hours.
Buenos Aires, Argentina (built for Venezuela, after the June 2026 earthquakes)
Ordinary People · Language Heritage
Michael Running Wolf left Amazon so Indigenous tribes could own their own AI.
Montreal, Quebec, Canada (McGill University); FLAIR operates across North America
Breakthrough · Energy
Jason Eshraghian and Rui-Jie Zhu built an AI that runs on the power of a lightbulb.
Santa Cruz, CA, USA
Social Impact · Language Heritage
The Cambridge technologist who built a $50 device to save a language with no written script
Southern India (Soliga Indigenous community); project led from Cambridge University, UK and IIIT Dharwad, India
Community · Government and Civic
The city attorney who used AI to find the reports nobody was reading
San Francisco, CA, USA
Ordinary People · Safety
Daniela Camberos built the AI that checks a job offer before it can become a trafficking trap.
Mexico
Ordinary People · Science
His grandfather told him stories about the rain prophets. Raul Souza taught a machine to listen.
Jaguaribe Valley, Ceará, Brazil (sertão)
Breakthrough · Science
The security researcher who built his own sky-searching tools, then found a world that glows
Massachusetts, USA
Ordinary People · Agriculture
He drove thirty minutes at five in the morning to read a thermometer for five seconds. Then Hiroki Tomiyasu built the thing that reads it for him.
Biratori and Mukawa, Hokkaido, Japan
Breakthrough · Environment
The naturalist who gave almost every humpback in the North Pacific a fingerprint
Global platform; contributors in more than 100 countries
Ordinary People · Education
The chemistry professor who set thermodynamics to music
Tallahassee, Florida, US
Ordinary People · Education
The California Teacher of the Year who turned ChatGPT into a writing coach
Santa Clarita, California, US
Ordinary People · Safety
The radiologist who saw intimate partner violence coming years before anyone said a word
Boston, Massachusetts
Ordinary People · Disaster Humanitarian
The volunteer who built Japan's disaster filter, then added twenty people to check the AI's work
Tokyo, Japan
Ordinary People · Safety
The son who built a missing-persons system during the five months he spent searching for his father
Louisville and Lexington, Kentucky
Ordinary People · Economic Fairness
The engineer who could not read the account number on the wall, so he taught his phone to read it for him
Osogbo, Nigeria
Ordinary People · Economic Fairness
The Afghan refugee who landed in America with no idea where to start, so she started asking
United States
Ordinary People · Disaster Humanitarian
The geophysicist who put cameras where nobody was looking, and started beating the 911 call
California, USA
Breakthrough · Science
Catherine Nakalembe walked Eastern Africa's farms for six years. Then she put the cameras on other people's helmets.
Uganda, Kenya, and across Eastern Africa
Adaptation · Work and Craft
Moshe Nussbaum lost his voice to ALS, so he wrote his way back on air
Tel Aviv, Israel
Org Spotlight · Law
The public defender who turned down the AI tools on the market, then had one built for public defense
Trenton, New Jersey
Org Spotlight · Work and Craft
The bank that took a 3,000-person job down to 135, and says it moved them rather than cut them
Singapore
Ordinary People · Agriculture
The Nogoyá agronomist who taught a machine to hold 23-plus years of his own judgment
Nogoyá, Entre Ríos, Argentina
Ordinary People · Government and Civic
Doug Gorman turned 8,000 strangers' ideas into a plan for his county
Bowling Green, Kentucky
Breakthrough · Science
The professor who spent decades chasing an unreadable scroll, then handed the finish to a thousand strangers
Lexington, Kentucky
Community · Government and Civic
Dawn Takeuchi Apuna made Honolulu's building permits work like TurboTax
Honolulu, Hawai'i
Ordinary People · Accessibility
The legally blind scientist who built himself back into the produce aisle
New York, NY

The record is still being written.

Stories of people building the future they want to see.

The radio station that decided te reo Māori was worth building for

Browse the stories

Kingsley Jasi didn't wait for an extension officer. He sent a photo instead.

David Hughes put the expert in the phone farmers already had

The 8,500 IKEA workers who got bigger jobs instead of redundancy notices

Racing to read the rainforest's library before it burns

Heather Minor didn't just fix a job she dreaded. She tells clerks across the country how to fix theirs.

Helen got her eye contact back. Two directors made sure she could keep it.

He wrote himself a song in a voice his illness had taken

Jorge Bastidas didn't wait for the government. He and his team built the missing-persons list in three hours.

Michael Running Wolf left Amazon so Indigenous tribes could own their own AI.

Jason Eshraghian and Rui-Jie Zhu built an AI that runs on the power of a lightbulb.

The Cambridge technologist who built a $50 device to save a language with no written script

The city attorney who used AI to find the reports nobody was reading

Daniela Camberos built the AI that checks a job offer before it can become a trafficking trap.

His grandfather told him stories about the rain prophets. Raul Souza taught a machine to listen.

The security researcher who built his own sky-searching tools, then found a world that glows

He drove thirty minutes at five in the morning to read a thermometer for five seconds. Then Hiroki Tomiyasu built the thing that reads it for him.

The naturalist who gave almost every humpback in the North Pacific a fingerprint

The chemistry professor who set thermodynamics to music

The California Teacher of the Year who turned ChatGPT into a writing coach

The radiologist who saw intimate partner violence coming years before anyone said a word

The volunteer who built Japan's disaster filter, then added twenty people to check the AI's work

The son who built a missing-persons system during the five months he spent searching for his father

The engineer who could not read the account number on the wall, so he taught his phone to read it for him

The Afghan refugee who landed in America with no idea where to start, so she started asking

The geophysicist who put cameras where nobody was looking, and started beating the 911 call

Catherine Nakalembe walked Eastern Africa's farms for six years. Then she put the cameras on other people's helmets.

Moshe Nussbaum lost his voice to ALS, so he wrote his way back on air

The public defender who turned down the AI tools on the market, then had one built for public defense

The bank that took a 3,000-person job down to 135, and says it moved them rather than cut them

The Nogoyá agronomist who taught a machine to hold 23-plus years of his own judgment

Doug Gorman turned 8,000 strangers' ideas into a plan for his county

The professor who spent decades chasing an unreadable scroll, then handed the finish to a thousand strangers

Dawn Takeuchi Apuna made Honolulu's building permits work like TurboTax

The legally blind scientist who built himself back into the produce aisle