Eteroa Lafaele

Software engineer and community leader, passionate about equity and increasing access to opportunity and technology. Co-founder & Director of Fibre Fale and DigiTautua.

“The need is significant, we have stories where families that have six in their family and they only have one device, and usually that one device is their mum or dad’s device, and they have to do school after school-hours because their parents have to do their nine to five and then from five to probably ten at night they have to do school.”

Eteroa hails from the beautiful islands of Samoa. Her villages are Fogapoa, Leulumoega Tuai and Lefaga. She was born and bred in Cannons Creek, Porirua, and went on to study a Bachelor of Computer and Information Sciences in Software Development at AUT University.

She is a Co-founder and Director of Fibre Fale – a purpose-led collective founded to create pathways for Pacific people in tech. She also co-founded DigiTautua – which came as a response to the need expressed by the Pacifika Community as a result of the COVID19 lockdowns and the educational inequities arising from a lack of devices and internet in the homes of their young people, where Eteroa and the team refurbished and fundraised for devices to help bridge the digital divide.

Eteroa has been recognised for work in the community and technology industry, she was the Young IT Professional of the Year 2021, Prime Minister Award for STEM 2019, was nominated as a Young Women of Influence 2019, has been an ASB Gold as Gold recipient and a MacDiarmid Institute Discovery recipient.