Several of you would have encountered Zui.nz over the last couple of months. The brainchild of Northland physio @Ben_Gray, it is a lovely clean way to do video without the gumpf and hassles (and cost) that accompany Microsoft Teams and Zoom.
If you’ve got a moment and are free to jump aboard to test it prior to the CiLN Advisory Panel meeting at 1500 today, we’d love to see you.
Hope to see you on there shortly!
Nathan
Thanks for those who jumped onto the call - it was much appreciated.
@ptang, we saw you but it didn’t seem to connect properly. Please let us know what it was like from your side.
Yes - thankyou everyone - that was really helpful and we appreciate you joining us. Cheers, Ben.
Hello Nathan, sorry for the late reply. was trying to help with some testing but got a team call which I need to attend. It was working fine even I only had a short session.
Kia ora, interested where the name Zui came from for this online video meeting platform? From my experience the word Zui was often used among Maori and non-Maori firstly in Covid lock down times to describe a Zoom Hui (meeting via Zoom platform). Interested to hear your thoughts.
Kia ora @hemim.
Thankyou for your query, it is timely.
I am a community physiotherapist from Whangarei and also run a software start-up called Provida. I am part of the team which builds ZUI and this is evolving to be some sort of open-source project and community.
The background is that I helped set up the “Hikurangi Covid Response” prior to the original Omicron surge. This was a small group of volunteer health professionals who partnered with some local shop owners and Maori Wardens to create a home isolation support service centred around a town just north of Whangarei - Hikurangi. The official community providers and GP’s were swamped and we offered to help. We set up an 0800 number and distributed a flyer to about 800 letter boxes - and the phone started ringing!
One thing we did was use video to re-connect with people who were unwell after we had dropped off whanau packs which included RATs, masks, kai, prescriptions, pulse oximeters etc. We started off using Zoom, Whatsapp, Messenger etc - but really wanted to create video meeting links on the fly via SMS before we left the household, so we could be sure it would work. Then we could check on people using video as they recovered. It was really useful to check people were using RAT tests correctly - or were reading the correct numbers for oxygen sats etc.
We had some experience using video on another community software project and starting working with a young gentleman named Jasper who we know from our local tech/coding club, and he has been the lead developer of the ZUI app.
ZUI is built using the Jitsi open-source code, sitting on AWS servers in Sydney and with a Svelte front end. It runs well on browsers and it meant we could avoid needing to download software, there were no time limits, and no one is presenting ads or scraping data!
As you have said, ZUI was a term being used as a combination of ZOOM and Hui, and we initially adopted that as the project name as it had such a short URL, was easy to remember and we were having various “Zui’s” as we set up our covid response.
However, our project group has been conscious that ZUI may not be an appropriate word to use long term without a proper process and engagement with Maori. For example, we were advised a number of times to trademark the ZUI brand - but elected not to.
As ZUI has started to “leak” out into the real world lately and been picked up by different groups including the eHealthForum, we have started to reach out wider to members of the Maori community and seek input on the use of the term. We don’t have any formal partnerships in place, but the conversations we have had thus far tend to centre around how we could develop the ZUI app to be multi-lingual and further the reach of Te Reo as well as other pacific languages.
So - your comment is timely and if you are interested, I would like to meet you one day on ZUI to further the conversation?
PS - the Hikurangi Covid Response eventually supported over 150 households and 450 individuals during 2022 and in the process became an official partner of Ngati Hine Health Trust who were leading the official community isolation support in this area. It was a good example of the community developing something based on an urgent need, and then iterating the service based on regular feedback. A bit like developing software 
.
And it is interesting that we find ourselves communicating about ZUI increasingly here in the eHealthForum that Nathan and his colleagues have set up on another open-source project, Discourse. While we don’t know exactly where this project leads, we do feel there will be plenty to share that can help others to incorporate video into their health/tech solutions.
Feel free to try ZUI at zui.nz
I hope to talk soon. My number is 0275 344 227.
Nga mihi,
Ben.
Kia ora Ben,
I am Ngati Hine and Ngapuhi myself from, Kamo, Whanagarei so know the area well, and that sounds like a great initiative you and others help set up for Hikurangi, which would have been very much appreciated and needed in a high needs area like that.
I also undertook some mahi at Ngati Hine Health Trust one summer whilst studying Pharmacy, lots of connections here already.
Sounds like an awesome app and I like the idea behind it, and different kaupapa it has been used for already, thanks for explaining the background behind the app. No cost, greater access for people across the board - I like this.
My main concern was I couldn’t see from the website itself where the name came from or the kaupapa behind it so was intrigued more than anything. From my own experience often Te Reo Maori words/symbols/logos etc are used to name products/outlets however they tend to not incorporate Te Ao Maori or reflect attributes of Te Ao Maori within them, which can often be seen as seen as a tokenistic advertising approach (not saying this is what is occurring here at all just own personal experiences from the past).
I agree with the point of consulting Maori at some level going forward if the intention on using the word ZUI is within a Te Ao Maori context, if you do have further discussions going forward, I’d be keen to hear about them. Sounds like you have many connections for this already.
All the best - look forward to using this app in the future.
Nga mihi
Hemi
Thanks Hemi.
It feels like a small world sometimes. And looking at your bio it looks like we have roughly switched places - I grew up in South Canterbury, inland of Timaru .
Thanks for your comments, I will message you directly to arrange a time to meet on ZUI which I am looking forward to.
I think Nathan will be happy you asked the questions above as he has been wanting me to put up a proper post about ZUI for a while now and I have hesitated while we try and figure out what really we are trying to achieve. There having been a few moving parts even to get to this stage.
But I think we are getting there, and I will use this discussion as the basis for a proper post that will discuss the ZUI project in terms of the technical challenges, the business model/funding (turns out more than two video streams burns a bit of CPU power!), and the brand/cultural part.
We don’t know exactly where the project will end up - but it has been a great learning exercise to this point and we would like to invite others to join us if it is interesting.
I will let you know when I put up the next post.
Regards, Ben.