Auckland AI-powered diabetes platform sets sights on India
Tuesday, 26 May 2026
Motekiai Tangi grew up watching his parents battle health issues and when he was 16, while picking his mother up from work, she had her third heart attack right beside him in the car.
“She went to hospital and was talking to her cardiologist and she couldn’t understand a single thing, but she would sit there and nod her head like she did,” Tangi told The Post.
“My mum is not dumb, she's not incompetent, she came to this country with nothing, no money, and managed to get multiple mortgages, so I refused to believe it's my mother, and settled on that it was the system.”
Tangi’s desire was soon sparked to build a system that would help people better understand and manage their chronic health conditions, and that is now what he has done, attracting the interest of Auckland Council and Health NZ.
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The programmes he has built, one focused on clinical delivery and the other on software development, have now attracted interest from as far away as India, where conditions like heart disease and diabetes are also plaguing the population.
But New Zealand has its own diabetes tsunami, with more than 312,000 Kiwis currently living with the disease and that figure expected to rise to 500,000 by 2040. Health spending will be nudging $4.8 billion by 2040.
It wasat the age of 21 that Tangi, who needed a CPAP machine to sleep at night, “marched into MIT [Manukau Institute of Technology] at almost 200 kilos” to start the journey through the polytech’s exercise science department, going on to complete a Bachelor of Applied Sport and Exercise Science.
In his third year of research, in 2021, he sold his Toyota Hilux to make the $25,000 he needed to invest in his start-up Fitness Sci-Tec, creating software that is the basis of the business.
Health NZ’s Pacific Health Group fully funded the development of the group’s diabetes patient management AI platform.
The exact figure attached to their investment has not been disclosed, but is less than $500,000.
“It was just an idea, just an online platform, and now it’s grown dramatically,” Tangi told The Post.
Fitness Sci-Tec now manages the Pacific Diabetes Northern Region contract for Health NZ, processing about 400 to 500 patients in its programmes.
It operates mobile clinics and utilises AI to track diabetes markers and make predictions, and creates personalised exercise and meal plans for those with a diabetic profile, obesity, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular disease.
Tangi, who left school at 14 and is the youngest of five children, said he is now gearing up to take on more contracts for the central health agency.
With his doctor from childhood Dr Kalavati Magan, the pair started developing the tech and now have 15 GPs on board, to the point where the project has its own blood testing lab.
The business also purchased a gym, Premier Fitness Botany and its franchise model to support its fitness programme for clients, and Tangi said it was in the market to open up more gyms across Auckland.
“As we started growing, and GPs started seeing our results in patients, no longer being diabetic or coming off medication, we've been inundated with requests.”
Fitness Sci-Tec’s programmes are half funded by the Government and the company. They are free to the patients for 12 months.
Tangi, who says he has personally invested upwards of $200,000 into the business from working in Australia, said he never expected to find himself in business ‒ or his idea to be having such an impact.
He has had meetings with Health Minister Simeon Brown about the platform, and has been invited to take part in innovation backing initiatives.
Tangi said he hoped the platform would be rolled out to all GPs around the country.
“We test everything, we monitor everything, and every single GP we hope will soon be using our software to manage their diabetic patients, as we now have a clear overview of each GP’s diabetic patient status across the board.”
Tangi said the platform was built with “common sense in mind” to make it simple for patients, and that was resonating. So much so that Health New Zealand apparently thought the young entrepreneur was lying about the numbers of people signing on: “It’s because we have a unique model of care … it's a mixture of Western and my Pacific culture that I weave together to develop this model.”
Health NZ national chief of Pacific health, Pauline Fuimaono Sanders, confirmed Fitness Sci-Tec’s programme was currently a diabetes pilot initiative operating in South Auckland.
Seeking providers who could effectively engage with Pacific communities and deliver culturally responsive care for Pacific patients with diabetes, Fitness Sci-Tec made the grade in early April 2024.
“The contract is in place until 30 June 2026, after which it will undergo a formal review and evaluation to assess its effectiveness and outcomes.”
Tangi said with support from GridAKL and through Auckland Council’s Economic Development team, there had been interest to take the platform to India, where 90 million people live with diabetes. It is expected to launch into the world’s most populous country in coming months.
Mayor Wayne Brown said Fitness Sci-Tec had created “practical innovation which solves a real problem and creates serious economic opportunity”, and it was for businesses like these that the Council had set up the Tech and Innovation Alliance, which provides support to start up founders with workspaces, mentoring, investor access, and international connections.