DigiKōr and DigiKōr+ are Campfire Studios’ podcast learning programmes for New Zealand schools. We designed and built both platforms. Students research, write, record and reflect, while AI takes care of the transcripts, summaries and first-draft marking so teachers can spend their time on the students.
Finalist - Te Ao Māori & Pasifika AI, 2026 Aotearoa AI Awards
Campfire Studios is a boutique podcast and film studio in Mount Eden, built around amplifying Māori and Pasifika voices. Founder Will (Viriamu) Fleming created DigiKōr - digital kōrero - to help young people build communication skills, confidence and a stronger sense of belonging through podcasting, while connecting with their communities and their cultural heritage.
The programme had to run in many classrooms at once. That brings a lot of admin: tracking each student’s progress through the course, reviewing their recordings, and gathering evidence for NCEA assessment. Campfire wanted technology to carry that load without taking any decisions away from teachers.
DigiKōr platform figures as at July 2026.
Two separate platforms for two age groups, sharing one approach: a clear weekly rhythm for students and a clear view of every student for teachers.
AI in education should support educators without replacing their judgement. So every AI feature in DigiKōr takes a repetitive job off the teacher and leaves the decisions with them.
Every recording is transcribed on the server straight after upload, so teachers can read what a student said without replaying it.
A short summary of each recording, written only from the transcript. If a recording is too short or unclear, there’s no summary rather than an invented one.
AI drafts Achieved or Not yet against the skill standard and cites the student’s own answers as evidence. Anything that needs visual evidence, like a logo or an edit, is flagged for the teacher to mark.
In DigiKōr+, students design podcast cover art with AI. Their wording is screened by a moderation model before anything is generated, and again during generation.
Teachers confirm or override every mark. The AI never makes a decision about a child on its own.
These platforms hold children’s voices and schoolwork, so privacy was a design constraint from the start, not a feature added later.
DigiKōr sits inside a wider body of work with Campfire Studios. We also built Vaka Ō Te Tupuna, where whānau record their elders’ stories and the recordings save straight to the family’s own Google Drive, so Campfire never holds the audio. Alongside the builds, we’re setting Claude up as a back-office assistant for the studio, helping with funding applications, reporting and programme analysis.
The pattern is the same each time: understand how the programme actually runs, design against it, then ship in steps the team can see and use.
Blake is an outstanding collaborator.
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I highly recommend working with Blake.
DigiKōr and DigiKōr+ are finalists in the Te Ao Māori & Pasifika AI category at the 2026 Aotearoa AI Awards. Winners are announced on 18 November 2026 at AUT City Campus in Auckland.
Congratulations to Will and the Campfire Studios team, and to all the finalists in the category. See the Aotearoa AI Awards finalists.
Visit DigiKōr, DigiKōr+ and Campfire Studios.
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Last updated 19 September 2026