Blog

TAIAO Data and Expertise Help Power Global Finalist Recognition in the World Bank Climate Risk Challenge

August 26, 2025

A project drawing on the TAIAO programme has won international recognition, with the team DelphiQ named grand finalists of the World Bank Climate Risk Challenge, part of the 2025 Global Industry Challenge (GIC). After successfully advancing through all three phases of the co...

Hackathon 2025

August 26, 2025

The 2024 Hackathon was a huge success!

This year's Waikato Hackathon event saw 17 participants across four teams developing a range of innovative AI solutions to real world environmental problems. Team Gallagher were the winning team with their project Recraft AI: Turning Commercial Waste into Community Trea...

August e-newsletter

August 8, 2025

August e-newsletter

As an initiative supported by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), TAIAO is committed to promoting and facilitating the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and data science in New Zealand's environmental sector.In this newsletter you will find:&nb...

DOC Habitat annotator and classifier

May 19, 2025

New Zealand's delicate reef ecosystems need careful protection, and analysing marine imaging data is key to this effort. To support this, TAIAO has teamed up with the Department of Conservation (DOC) to create an innovative online image annotation platform. This tool simplif...

Aotearoa Species Classifier

April 10, 2025

The Aotearoa Species Classifier is the first comprehensive New Zealand-specific species classifier through Artificial Intelligence (AI).Trained using a data set of over 1.2 million expert-annotated images, the AI tool is able to identify thousands of Aotearoa’s plants, ani...

Forest Flows Monitoring

April 10, 2025

Clean, fresh water is essential for life. As land-use intensification and climate change place growing pressure on water resources, it is vital that we manage water use sustainably. Planted forests can be managed to provide beneficial water outcomes, given adequate science i...

Flood Prediction Tool

April 10, 2025

The flood prediction tool is a new artificial intelligence system being designed by the University of Waikato to predict the impact of future flooding events in the Coromandel region.Being developed as part of the TAIAO project, it will be one of only a handful of systems in...

Highlights from the Environmental Data Science and AI Summit

August 28, 2024

Academics and Research Institutes Unite to Discuss the Future of Environmental Data Science and Artificial Intelligence

On Monday, 19 August TAIAO hosted its first-ever Environmental Data Science and AI Summit at Victoria University of Wellington. Speakers from some of Aotearoa New Zealand’s top research institutes came together with academics to discuss how data science and AI can seek a d...

Environmental Data Science and AI Summit

July 8, 2024

Welcome to the Environmental Data Science and AI Summit!

Join us at Victoria University of Wellington on 19 August 2024 (Monday) for an engaging day filled with talks, workshops, and networking opportunities centered on the intersection of environmental studies and data science in New Zealand. This summit is id...

Hackathon 2024

June 14, 2024

We’re delighted to be supporting the AI Hackathon 2024 in Waikato and Canterbury on 8 and 9 August 2024. Registrations are now open! Join us at the University of Waikato or the University of Canterbury for the AI Hackathon 2024, solve real-world problems and help make a di...