The man who brought the America's Cup to life for TV viewers is New Zealand's newest knight in the New Year Honours list.
High-tech digital pioneer, Sir Ian Taylor, who established Animation Research Limited in 1990 has received the honour for services to broadcasting, business and the community.
ARL's Ian Taylor in Bermuda with a simulator produced by the Dunedin firm Photo: RNZ/Todd Niall
His graphics are credited by sailing commentators with helping the casual fan follow the event, showing real-time animations of racing.
Sir Ian tells Jesse Mulligan the honour wouldn’t have happened without some of the amazing people who worked with him on the original code for America’s Cup graphics – who still work with him to this day.
He was one of the pioneers of turning digital information into animated graphics and started with four students from Otago University.
“The first example of it was the America’s Cup – they took digital data off the back of a boat and made sailing make sense. That seemed like a valuable use of that information.”
He says people should be realising that the America’s Cup isn’t a boat race, it’s a race of technology.
“Ever since New Zealanders entered it – the first boat they ever entered was plastic – they’ve broken the boundaries everywhere in technology. This latest boat is just out of this world.”
While Sir Ian has had huge success with his company, there were some failures along the way. The year of 2008 was a particularly bad one for the team.
“We had a disastrous exercise in India where we were doing cricket and the contract got shafted and we basically ended up with about $2 million in debt. I couldn’t find a way out. I can still remember Liz [his wife] and I going through all this, it was really desperate times.
“We came to the decision we were going to have to close. We walked into the office and, as we walked in, Ally who was our receptionist at the time – and now helps run the business – she had the ODT in front of her and she held it up and on the front page it said 480 people were being laid off at Fisher and Paykel. She looked at me and said, how awful would that be."
Liz and Sir Ian decided to spend a couple days thinking about what to do before making the decision to shut the business.
“One thing led to another and I had this crazy idea which I shared with staff which meant that if we did something we could pay off all our debts and I had enough money to keep going for two months to give them time to look for new jobs.
“Every one of them said, nah let’s stick it out. And we’re still here and all of those people that were there in 2008 are still here.”
Sir Ian grew up in a house with electricity in a small town in the 1950s and was often asked how a Māori man from a poor background became so successful.
“I always used to say ‘I surrounded myself with clever white people’ and, for years, I believed that.”
His perspective changed after he learned about the innovation, technology, and logistics employed by Māori and Pacific Island people in exploration.
“I’ve come to realise that this stuff is in my DNA.”
