Cool Projects Maui

Last year the HI State Legislature in response to the economic crisis significantly cut back Act 221 which was responsible for $1.3 billion in private investment in start-up innovation companies in HI. As a result there has been a dramatic drop in investment. Now with SB2401 there is an attempt to defer honoring investments already made. This will cripple any future efforts to provide incentives to both private sector and even Federal government investing in HI most of which requires local matching. If you are reading this before the end of April 2010 you have an opportunity to express your opposition to your State senators.

It is very difficult to get financing for innovative projects including most of the kinds of businesses we need to be developing for sustainability.   If they haven’t been done before successfully, the only way to get funding is through private investment or government funding.   Government funding too frequently gets politicized and the bureaucracy scares away many innovators.   Private investors usually require a much higher return on investment (i.e. the equivalent of 100% interest) for risky projects.   What Act 221 provided in HI was a mitigation of a significant part of the risk - you might only lose 60% of your investment instead of 100% (after the net effect of the tax credits), plus it allowed those seeking funding to be less aggressive in their growth plans also lowering risk.   Lack of these incentives will make it that much more difficult although not impossible to get financing.

From a citizen/taxpayer point of view, without economic growth (hopefully in smart areas) there will be steadily fewer revenues for community supported programs like public education, safety net programs, and basic government services–a continuing downward spiral.  So we need to come up with ways to break the downward spiral.   Investing in new sustainable industries is the best way to do this. 

The most up to date discussion of this topic is at http://www.kmeb.org/insights02.htm    It is a video discussion on the Island Insights program on PBS Hawaii featuring the two leaders of the Legislature’s finance committees along with venture capitalist Jeff Au, and taxpayers’ advocate Lowell Kalapa.

There is also a good video interview with Jeff Au and Jay Fidell at ThinkTech Hawaii: 

 

  

Jeff Au on a status report of tech tax incentives from Jay Fidell on Vimeo.

In February Google announced that it was going to provide one or more communities gigabit broadband fiber with the goal of serving as a test bed. A group of us on Maui put together a Facebook page, a blog and a YouTube site which we are still evolving. We also worked with Maui County Councilmember Sol Kaho`ohalahala to create a response to Google’s RFI on behalf of the Maui County Council. We submitted this response last Friday, March 26th. The Washington Post reported that "1,200 municipalities responded from Maui to Maine". So we are already in the mindscape for this.

Our Maui response is under the banner HiFiMaui and there is a website there that will shortly have info about what we submitted and more.  See http://hifimaui.com.  We also have a YouTube channel:  http://YouTube.com/hifimaui. Last but not least we have a Facebook fan site called GoogleFiberForMaui.   Please go there and support the effort.   As of now there are over 500 fans.

There is a great general background site on broadband that went live in mid March hosted by the Federal Communications Commission: http://broadband.gov  There is a regularly updated blog with smart well written entries, and a good overview of the benefits of broadband in the areas Economic Opportunity, Education, Health Care, Energy & Environment, Government Performance, Civic Engagement, and Public Safety.  While the feds are "only" talking about a 100 mb goal (Google’s is 10 times this) it is still quite relevant since the Fed goal is 20 to 100 times faster than what we have now for most of Maui.   There is also $7.2 billion in Federal stimulus money supporting this, so IF we don’t get picked by Google - this is still stuff we need to start thinking about and getting creative.

Here is some background on what Google is up to:

Jay Fidell of ThinkTechHawaii has watched the evolution of Hawaii’s news media over the last decades and played a part as a columnist, tv show host, and blogger. He brought together over 200 people including speakers from Washington, D.C. and a U.S. blogger in China, and one of the top Silicon Valley industry watchers plus Hawaii’s top media together on March 18th, 2010 in Honolulu. These are several hours of video but worth watching. The finale of the conference was the presentation by John Temple of Peer News (see separate posting). Just before he spoke, Jay April of Maui’s Akaku Community Television presented a 5 minute video on the role citizen correspondents are playing on Maui. This video is at the bottom of this post.

Avi Soifer on the Role of the News in a Free Society from Jay Fidell on Vimeo.

 

NewsMorphosis panel on the Transformation of the News from Jay Fidell on Vimeo.

NewsMorphosis panel on Technology in the Transformation from Jay Fidell on Vimeo.

NewMorphosis panel on Challenges in the Transformation from Jay Fidell on Vimeo.

The event concluded with the introduction of Peer News by John Temple. Prior to his presentation, Jay April of Maui’s Akaku Community Television showed a 5 minute film about citizen journalists and how Akaku has been doing this in Hawaii:

Ebay founder Pierre Omidyar is launching a new venture with the goal of blending the best of traditional journalism with social networking: Peer News. Newly hired award winning editor John Temple’s first public talk on what Peer News hopes to achieve was at NewsMorphosis2.0 held on Honolulu on March 18th. I attended along with Jay April from Akaku and Tommy Russo and Jacob Shafer from Maui Time Weekly. Akaku was a sponsor of the event (more in other postings). 

John Temple on the Role of Peer News in the Transformation from Jay Fidell on Vimeo.

More information is at http://PeerNews.com and http://JohnTemple.net .

 

The Native Hawaiian owned company, Akimeka, hosted Sen. Inouye at a re-dedication ceremony for their Joint Information Technology Center at the Maui Tech Park on Friday 8/21 after a similar event at the Maui High Performance Computing Center.  Last year Akimeka received a $738 million ten year contract to staff the Pacific Middle Range Facility on Kauai.   

 See Pacific Business News article and Harry Eagar’s Maui News article article, with headlines focusing on the supercomputer, republished in the Honolulu Advertiser on Saturday.

Akimeka’s web site

On Friday, August 21, 2009, the 50th anniversary of Hawaii becoming a state, the Maui High Performance Computing Center, which is 15 years old, received an upgrade and was renamed from "Jaws" to "Mana".  Operated by the University of Hawaii and the U.S. Air Force Research Labs, it has regained the distinction, for at least a short while, of being the most powerful computer facility in the U.S.    Present for the blessing were U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye, the original and current champion of having a supercomputer on Maui; and new University of Hawaii President M.R.C. Greenwood, making her first public appearance as UH President.

Cutting the ribbon.  Front row from left:  Irene Hirano Inouye, Sen. Daniel Inouye, Maui Mayor Charmain Tarvares, University of Hawaii President M.R.C. Greenwood; back row from left: UH VP for Research Jim Gains, Capt. Joseph Dratz of AFRL, UH VP for IT and CIO David Lassner, (obscured) Director of DoD Hi Performance Computing Modernization Program Cray Henry, and Laura Ulibarri of AFRL (photo by Cindy Schumacher)

Maui News Article

Maui Weekly Article - coming

Maui High Performance Computing Center web site

MHPCC Application Briefs - 2009 Update Expected Soon

  Creative Conflict Solutions, an Hawaii consulting business, has just released a white paper, "A Clean Energy Future for Maui and Hawaii: Conversations with Key Players - Issues, Interests and Solutions".   Authored by Creative Conflict Solutions partners Melanie Stephens and Dr. Phillis Robinson (see photo), the white paper represents the fruit of interviewing 17 leaders in Hawaii’s clean energy movement (see list below). 

Robinson has a Doctorate in organizational psychology and Stephens a Masters in mediation and conflict resolution.  They work with both businesses, non-profits, government agencies, with families and individuals to creatively resolve conflicts.  The changes involved in shifting from a petroleum based economy to a renewable energy based economy inevitably are conflict charged. 

Stephens and Robinson advocate a proactive preventative approach before conflicts take on a life of their own, lead to litigation and to win/lose or lose/lose scenarios.   My experience advising businesses has shown that inter-personal conflict is the number one cause of business failure, which is why I have strongly encouraged consultancies like Creative Conflict Solutions.

Interviews for "White Paper":

Robbie Alm, Vice President of Public Affairs, Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO)
Brad Albert and Matias Besasso, co-owners, Rising Sun Solar
Irene Bowie, Executive Director, Maui Tomorrow
Leo Caires, Owner, Maui Energy Co. (Residential Wind)
Alex DeRoode, Sustainable Living Institute of Maui (SLIM),
Maui Community College, Chair of the Maui County Energy Alliance Working Group Two, Education and Workforce Development
Mark Duda, President, Hawaii Solar Energy Association, & Partner/Finance, Distributed Energy Partners
J. Carl Freedman, Haiku Design and Analysis, Integrated Resource Planning, Public Utility Regulatory Affairs
David Fisher, Director, Hawaii Small Business Development Center on Maui
Mike Gresham, Former Director of First Wind
Ruby A. Hamili, Maui Attorney
John Harrison, Administrator, Maui Economic Development Board, Maui County
Kelly King, Co-owner, Pacific Bio-Diesel
Chris Mentzel, Owner, Clean Energy Maui
Rob Parsons, Former Environmental Coordinator of Maui County, Vice President of Maui Tomorrow, and Conservation Chair of Sierra Club of Maui
Ed Reinhardt, President and Sharon Suzuki, Renewable Energy Division
Maui Electric Company, Limited (MECO).
Ronald “Skeeter” Stebbins, of Maui Real Estate Company, representing Southland Community Development Corporation in the purchase of the Hana Ranch.
Charmaine Tavares, Mayor, Maui County and founder of the Maui County Energy Alliance (MCEA)

You can download the white paper at this link

You can also read an article about the whitepaper at the MauiWeekly, where  Creative Conflict Solutions have a regular advice column.  

Find out more in general about Creative Conflict Solutions at their website http://CreativeConflictSolutions.com

I also have an interview that I did with Phyllis and Melanie that I will be posting here shortly as a podcast.

The Tech Hui Conference - This Saturday, July 25th from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. on the UH Manoa campus, for anyone interested in or involved in new technology. Go to this link for more information and to register.   If you can’t make the conference you should at least sign up as a member of TechHui.com.  TechHui.com is a virtual community that most of the time is online.  This is a rare event when members (including yours truly) come together face-to-face.

The Hawaii Spin Out Summit - Next Thursday, July 30th from 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Kalaha Hotel.   Hosted by HiBEAM and Virtual Law Partners - this event will focus on the commercialization of technology developed by the University of Hawaii.  For more information and to register go to this link.

Hawaii Business Tax Summit 2009 - Next Friday, July 31st at the Frank Loyd Wright-designed Kamehameha Golf Club from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. (including lunch).    The Maui accounting firm of Levin & Hu is organizing the event.   Besides host Doug Levin, speakers will include Lt. Governor James "Duke" Aiona, and KGNB9’s business reporter Howard Dicus, who is brilliant at making complex stuff understandable while always leaving his audience with a smile.  Also presenting will be Brad Albert of Rising Sun Solar, one of the top installers of PV systems.

The summit will review all the latest in tax issues that should be of interest to small businesses, both State and Federal.   Most of the new Federal stimulus provisions relating to small business are in the tax code.   Find out how to get refunds, about the very attractive credits available for going solar, and how to get reimbursed for 90% of your employee health insurance.   Also get an update on Hawaii’s innovation tax credits, which are still significant, even though they have been reduced.   We will also get an update on how ARC loans are coming along in the implementation process.  As of this writing none in Hawaii yet, but first ones on Mainland last week.

There will be lots of networking.  You can get a big discount by entering "SBDC" when prompted for a discount code.   Register here.    This event will repeat on Oahu on August 26th.

 

I am leaving the Hawaii Small Business Development Center Network (a program of the U.S. Small Business Administration and the University of Hawaii at Hilo) as of September 1st to create Maui Venture Consulting LLC.   Some might say that this is a crazy time to start a new venture, but I think it is a great time.  Change is all around us.  When has there been a better time to make a real difference?   There are a lot of people who need more than what I can provide as a counselor at the SBDC.  In my new role, I will be able to do more hands-on work for clients, and put more concentrated effort into projects.  I will be able to help non-profit ventures, and those outside of Maui.  I  hope to also be able to work more with other private sector consultants and economic development organizations focused on making a real difference.

While I start my private consulting practice, I am going to be gradually expanding the scope and capabilities of CoolProjectsMaui.com.  Starting with an increase in the frequency of postings which will continue to include video and audio.  To do this I am going to be looking for partners and contributors, creating space for sponsors, and introducing a membership layer.   I have been researching new semantic web technology, which I plan to use to create a powerful resource matching capability. We are going to open up the community functions and provide an incentive for those who register besides being able to post.   The "members" will be able to list their capabilities and projects (products and services), and search for resources and projects added by other registrants and from the rolodex that I have developed over 19 years of doing business development in Hawaii.   I (and others) will be doing regular webinars that you will be able to participate in live, or on demand (after the live event has happened).   Of course, I will continue doing face-to-face workshops at MCC and at other venues. 

Let me know how you would like to participate? Writing?  Video? Editing? Graphic arts? Technology? Helping get the word out?  Or just having us learn about your "cool projects"?

Stay tuned over the next weeks and months for updates and bookmark CoolProjectsMaui.com.  In the mean time, please take advantage of my last month at the SBDC by setting up an appointment calling 808-875-2402.

The Hawaii SBDC Network State Office in Hilo has started the process of bringing on at least a part-time counselor to be able to start by September 1st.    If you are interested in doing this kind of work let me know and also look out for job postings at www.rcuh.com.

It has been a great honor working with you and over 3,000 entrepreneurs over the last 19 years here on Maui.   I look forward to continue working with you even more in my new incarnation.