WIPCE 2025 recognised at NZEA awards
WIPCE 2025 has won Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Event of the Year at the NZEA New Zealand Event Awards 2026.
AUT hosted the World Indigenous Peoples’ Conference on Education in November 2025 in partnership with Iwi Manaaki Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei.
It was the largest education conference ever held in Aotearoa New Zealand and one of the most significant Indigenous-led gatherings convened globally.
AUT Vice-Chancellor, Toeolesulusulu Professor Damon Salesa, is Co-Chair of WIPCE 2025.
"This recognition reflects the collective effort of our partners, mana whenua, staff, volunteers and Indigenous communities from around the world who helped make WIPCE 2025 such a remarkable success,” he says.
“The conference demonstrated that diversity, inclusion and Indigenous leadership are not only values to be celebrated, they are powerful drivers of connection, innovation and economic impact, contributing more than $8.2m to Auckland's economy and attracting more than 3800 delegates from around the world.
"We also acknowledge our Iwi Manaaki, Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, whose partnership was integral to WIPCE 2025. Together, we created a globally significant gathering that reflected the very best of Indigenous leadership and hospitality."
WIPCE 2025 Co-Chair Professor Meihana Durie says much of the event’s success was due to the expertise, experience and commitment of the WIPCE 2025 Project Team working in close partnership with Iwi Manaaki Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei.
“This powerful collaboration ensured WIPCE 2025 not only upheld the WIPCE legacy, but advanced it,” he says.
“The purposeful inclusion of the wider city of Tāmaki Makaurau, including so many of our Pacific communities in Tāmaki meant that this was the People's Festival.”
Professor Durie says innovative WIPCE 2025 kaupapa such as Te Ao Pūtahi Festival and Te Ao Tirotiro cultural excursions created vibrant and interactive experiences where Indigenous knowledge, culture, innovation, and unity flourished and thrived on the global stage.
“The recognition of AUT and Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei with a NZEA award is a humbling testament to the vision, dedication, and collaboration that made this achievement possible.”
WIPCE 2025 Event Director Torise Flay says she is incredibly proud and Te Wānanga Aronui o Tāmaki Makau Rau and its leadership should take a bow.
“From the outset, we wanted to create an experience where Indigenous cultures and voices were at the heart of every element. This award is a powerful acknowledgement of what we set out to create."
There were two winners in the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Event of the Year category at the NZEA New Zealand Event Awards this year. Music Portrait of a Humble Disabled Samoan also won the category, with the judges saying both events deserved to win.
The communications campaign for WIPCE 2025 was also recently recognised at the 2026 PRINZ Awards. Māori communications agency Māia and AUT were awarded Bronze in the category for Best Use of Media Relations and the category for Community Relations and Engagement.
Mihi to Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei
The University held a pōwhiri on June 16 to acknowledge Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei for its support of WIPCE 2025 and its hospitality in welcoming thousands of Indigenous attendees to the shores of Tāmaki Makaurau.
Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei brought with them Indigenous taonga from around the world that had been gifted at WIPCE 2025, and that will now be safely kept at AUT.
Indigenous peoples gave everything from coffee beans, smudging rongoā (medicine), earrings and necklaces to a fur draw-string pouch containing yellow rock that is used for painting, and a Kānaka Maoli motif repatriated from the British Museum.
AUT presented Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei with six framed photographs of WIPCE 2025 taken by students and alumni who worked in the WIPCE 2025 Social Media Team.