Dr Ihirangi Heke, of Waikato-Tainui descent, was raised in the South Island mountain adventure environment of Queenstown, before it was popularly known as such. Over the past 10 years he has been active in helping Māori and other indigenous groups abroad, build their own health and wellness activities based on their traditional environmental knowledge using mountain biking, waka ama and ski/snowboard. Dr Heke was recently awarded a research grant to compare Systems Science and Whakapapa (Maori Genealogical Connections) by Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and retains an Honorary Research Fellow position to the University of Auckland’s Department of Biostatistics.

Patrick Reynolds is a director at Waka Kotahi, with a background in urbanism, advocacy, and the arts.