Siri in Te Reo Māori among latest Government funding projects

Teaching Apple iPhone's virtual assistant Siri to speak Te Reo Māori is among four research programmes the Government has announced funding for.

"The projects were chosen on excellence, and will help New Zealand to address some of our greatest challenges like bringing te reo into everyday digital interactions, and building a picture of climatic and ecological trends," Science and Innovation Minister Megan Woods said.

The funded data science projects include developing a multilingual language platform to use technology in te reo, using data science techniques to grow the aquaculture industry through the use of low-carbon protein, developing new systems to crunch large, long-term environment data collections and creating new methods to find and gather data with minimal human intervention.

"To harness the benefits of data science, New Zealand needs to be at the forefront of emerging data science technologies," Ms Woods said. 

"The new investment will significantly lift New Zealand's capability, provide fresh and ambitious thinking to support international and national collaborations in cutting edge data science research."

The funding totals $49 million over seven years.