Taika Waititi (Te Whānau-a-Apanui), Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, is a New Zealand filmmaker, actor and comedian who gained international recognition for his idiosyncratic style of storytelling. Arguably our most globally successful contemporary film creator, his works demonstrate huge originality and sophisticated humour, while often proudly representing Aotearoa New Zealand and te ao Māori.
Choreographing one Super Bowl halftime show is an achievement, but to design and choreograph two of these global prime time shows marks Parris Goebel, Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, as a creative talent at the top of her game.
The first successful summit of the world’s highest mountain, Mt Everest (or Chomolungma, as the Tibetans call her), inextricably linked two people: Sir Edmund Hillary, Order of New Zealand, and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay. The pair were brought together as part of the ninth British expedition to Everest, led by John Hunt.
Breakthroughs in space travel are standard fare for Rocket Lab, the pioneering satellite-launch business started by New Zealand rocket enthusiast Peter Beck in 2006. In 2009, it became the Southern Hemisphere’s first private company to reach space.
Another space pioneer from Aotearoa New Zealand is Sir William Hayward Pickering, Order of New Zealand, the original Rocket Man. His name graced the side of Rocket Lab’s fourth Electron rocket, and their first mission for NASA’s Educational Launch of Nanosatellites programme named: ‘This one’s for Pickering’.
Ruby Tui burst onto the world stage at the 2012 Oceania Women’s Rugby Sevens Championship in Fiji. Selected through the high-performance programme Go 4 Gold, she’d only been playing rugby for two years, but Ruby was determined to succeed.
