Taumata Awards 2025: Hope for a generation

For most of us, the concept of being considered an “alumni” is a foreign one. An imagined future, as being a student requires, what newly minted Young Alumnus of the Year Craig Piggott coined: “dealing with the fires in front of you.”

Indeed, our future seems to be catching fire with each passing day in the face of growing inequality, international rise of conservatism, and of course, climate change.

Even the University itself has been feeling the heat of looming fires in front of them too, with the vote for the Business-Law faculty merger being delayed in the face of massive outrage among staff and students.

Most glaring is that the 5 distinguished alumni awards are no longer tied to specific faculties, as they were last year. Huh.

Yet, as a pre-post-grad student, I am technically a half-alumni. Maybe it’s the inventible rose-tinting of my advanced age of 23, but Vice-Chancellor Dawn “Star man” Freshwater’s welcoming address resonated with me.

“There is a dearth of hope. But every day on our campus there are 50,000 reasons for hope and optimism for the future” ~ Vice-Chancellor Dawn Freshwater

I wholeheartedly agree. We need more hope in this world. I think us students, and human beings in general, tend to be a tad too cynical. Yes, there are SO many reasons to be upset. But if we don’t keep the Taumata (the Summer or Peak) in mind, we can lose track of our reason to confront those fires in front of us. As such I will try keep my own sarcasm to a bare minimum for the rest of the review.

This year’s Taumata Awards were themed around space, the final frontier, continuing the sci-fi trend from last year’s Tron ceremony and still hosted by the intergalactic Jack Tame.

Tame observed it takes three traits to be a distinguished alumni. First, you need to be a keen observer of the world and wish to improve it. Second, you need to be a natural-born leader. Third, you need to a UOA alumni [insert canned laughter here]. But hey, at least us plebs have 1/3 boxes ticked.

You can read more about the award recipients’ extraordinary achievements here, but I’ll give you quick rundown.

Amelia Linzey - CEO of BECA, massive NZ infrastructure company. Her company has built stuff ranging from the Waterview tunnel and the new Social Science building. Linzey said that being a woman in leadership in a male dominated field is a huge responsibility to be a role model, but she stressed that being a minority in the room is also an opportunity to be taken. Embodying that mindset, she was handed her award by her own daughter, a first year UOA student following in her footsteps.

Linzey also stressed that New Zealand’s unique bi-culturalism offers Kiwis a competitive edge on the global stage, as our challenging future requires diverse perspectives. Western ways of doing things are unsustainable so we need to turn to indigenous approaches.

Her words echoed the words of our AUSA Student President, Gabriel Boyd, who defended the newly established Waipapa Taumata Rau (WTR100) gen-ed course in the face of recent criticism from the ACT Party and conservative media. Indeed, our bi-culturalism is our edge.

Taualeo’o Stephen Stehlin MNZM was welcomed on stage with a chorus of Cheehoos. A legend in NZ media for his work to promote Pasifika representation and foundational figure with Tagata Pasifika. Tame surprised him by lore dropping a time when he was detained (NOT ARRESTED, as Stehlin emphasised) in Tunisia in the 80s while filming a documentary on the Māori Battalion, when his degree in French from UOA came in handy.

Craig Piggott, the aforementioned Young Alumnus of the Year, is the guy behind those automated cow-herding collars. Haven’t heard of them? Well, as a casual Country Calendar enjoyer, I was geeking out a bit. His now multi-million dollar international story had humble origins with the Velocity program at UOA. His message: you can do anything you can put your mind to by putting out one fire at a time.

The multi-billionaire from Kaitaia, Peter Cooper CNZM literally bought Britomart off the City Council and redeveloped it into what it is today. As one just does. Although he made his fortune in America, he said he had to leave to get inspired about where he came from, Aotearoa. While laconic in speech, he drops lore so wild left right and centre you can’t help but be captivated in his stories, like casually discovering a Māori burial ground by finding 14 skeletons after a storm eroded part of his property.

Last but not least, there was Helen Robinson who probably has the biggest impact close to home. She leads the Auckland City Mission, which gives critical support and care to those who are, as she puts it, “excluded from society”. She said she has learnt the contours of the shape of the human heart. She hopes for a better, more equitable future for our country. A dream I hope our generation will fulfil.

And that was the Taumata Awards 2025. I hope you enjoyed my little gate-crashing espionage report as much as I enjoyed the endless waves of free churros funded by your uni fees ;)