Founder and owner of Animation Research Limited (ARL)

Recognised as one of New Zealand’s leading M?ori innovators, Ian Taylor is the founder and owner of one of New Zealand’s leading computer graphics companies Animation Research Limited (ARL) based in Dunedin.

Ian worked with TVNZ for 20 years before he left in 1988 to establish three successful technology businesses in Dunedin: Taylormade Media, a multi-media company; Animation Research Ltd (ARL), a computer animation company; and BookIt, a specialist online booking company. He shot to fame in the computing world when ARL provided revolutionary real-time 3-D sports graphics at the 1992 America’s Cup.

The company has gone on to expand this technology into a range of global sports, including golf, cricket, tennis and Formula One.

Besides sports, the company has contributed computer animation to television shows both within New Zealand and overseas including: Kiwi documentary series Human Potential, the BBC’s Inventions That Changed the World, and National Geographic’s Mega Disasters. In 2006 ARL’s Air Traffic Control Simulator, built in partnership with Airways New Zealand, won three categories of the Computer World Excellence Awards.

Born in Kaeo in Northland, of Ng?ti Kahungunu descent, Ian was raised in the small east coast settlement of Raupunga, halfway between Napier and Gisborne.

Ian has also worked on some landmark M?ori graphic developments, including the award winning Whale Watch Kaikoura’s virtual tour, the 3D Aoraki/Mt Cook visitor attraction and, most recently, the 3D Maui story which screened in Waka Maori during the Rugby World Cup 2011.

He was a member of the Government’s ICT Task Force, was one of four trustees on the Secondary Futures Trust and is currently on the Innovation Board of the Ministry of Science and Innovation and is a Board member of Maori Television.

Ian was inducted into the New Zealand Hi-Tech Hall of Fame in 2009 and was named North & South magazine’s 2010 New Zealander of the Year. He was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the New Zealand Computer Society (HFNZCS) in 2010, the top honour of the ICT sector in New Zealand.