Ngā Tohu Kahurangi 2021

Blues Awards 2021

The Blues Awards are part of a tradition from England. The blue colours of Oxford and Cambridge Universities came to symbolise sporting excellence.

While a Blues Award has traditionally been a sporting accolade, there are now four categories of the award at the University of Auckland:

Sports
Arts and Cultural
Service and Leadership
Innovation

The Blues Awards looked a bit different this year with the Major Award Winners and Blues recipients in all four categories announced online. Find out who in the University community took away the major accolades at this year’s Blues Awards.

Major Award Winners

Award for the Most Meritorious Innovation

Daniel Ge

Commerce student Daniel (left) created a cost effective and high-quality roster web application for nurses and doctors in the Health industry. Winning the Velocity 100k challenge, his team interviewed nurses and doctors from numerous DHBs, and identified challenges they faced with rostering that did not meet staffing needs. His A.I. roster creation has enabled the health care personnel to generate rosters automatically rather than manually, saving time and creating better alignment with staffing requirements. Many nursing wards in New Zealand are currently trialling his program.

Isaac Cleland

Doctoral Engineering student Isaac (right), the winner of the 2020 Velocity 100k challenge, developed a state-of-the-art A.I. technique to create a fully automated rostering application for hospital staff. His creation has significantly reduced the time and errors of manual rostering, and is currently being trialled at multiple nursing wards in New Zealand.

Award for the Most Outstanding Contribution (Service and Leadership)

Justice-Te Amorangi Hetaraka

Justice founded HĀ Histories of Aotearoa, an organisation that develops and facilitates education programmes for high school students and teachers, investigating the histories of Aotearoa through oral traditions and understanding through art. She ran a pilot of the programme with a Whangārei High School with high acclaim and went on to present her team’s mahi to the Prime Minister at Waitangi Day. HĀ was the recipient of a Commendation of Merit Award (non-profit), the 2021 Māori Business Awards and recently raised $12,000 through an exhibition of the created art works.

Sportsman of the Year and Award for the Most Meritorious Performance (Sport)

Michael Brake

Engineering student Michael and his crew placed first at the final Olympic qualification regatta in Lucerne. They went on to claim an Olympic gold medal in the rowing men’s eight at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Sportswoman of the Year

Theresa Fitzpatrick

Health Sciences student Theresa is part of the Black Ferns Sevens squad who won gold at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Theresa is a strong starter for the Black Ferns Sevens and was part of the squad that won the 2021 Oceania Sevens Championship and the 2021 Trans-Tasman Seven Championship.

Major Māori Award

Emma Edmonds

Māori Development postgraduate student Emma is a key member of Te Ohonga. The roopu is creating whānau led opportunities to respond to the housing crisis in the Northland region of Utakura and has secured funding from Government to renovate the derelict homes and design a plan for papakainga housing. Emma is deeply involved in this mahi, hosting hui and engaging with whānau and Government to create tangible impacts.

Para-athlete Sportsperson of the Year Award

Anna Steven

Science student Anna set a new PB and Oceania record in the T64 200m heat and placed 8th in the final at the 2020 Paralympics in Tokyo. Anna also competed at the 2021 Oceania Invitational athletic series and placed 14th in the 100m sprint and 6th in the 200m sprint.

See the full list of winners in for the 2021 Blues Awards here.