Apr 29, 2020 | Education, Stemworks
Every year, teachers, industry professionals, and hundreds of students from across the state converge at the Hawaii Convention Center to participate in an elaborate celebration of all things STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics). The conference is sponsored by the Maui Economic Development Board (MEDB) STEMworks™ program. However, the 2020 Hawaii STEM Conference live event was cancelled in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, like so many other events in the community.
“In the days following the cancellation, teachers and students expressed their disappointment at missing this opportunity for professional development and engagement with industry leaders,” said Katie Taladay, STEMworks™ Program Manager. “The STEMworks team began compiling opportunities to bring highlights from the annual meeting to life virtually. Therefore, on May 7-9, for the first time ever, the Hawaii STEM Conference will be moving to an online platform using a combination of live Zoom sessions and recorded videos.”
Students, teachers, and industry professionals from across Maui and the state will have the opportunity to participate in a keynote talk from Microsoft, live training sessions on Artificial Intelligence, Geospatial Information Systems, and more. There will also be a STEM Industry Playground Video Library to learn about workplace needs and opportunities, live Stemmy Awards for competition winners, and a two-day Virtual Hackathon in partnership with BizzyB and Malama Maunalua.
The fast-paced Hackathon is an Oyster Cage Design Challenge, where students will learn about Malama Maunalua’s mission to help improve water quality in their ahupuaa by growing oysters to filter out water pollutants. Teams of 3-5 students will meet in virtual breakout rooms under the guidance of mentors to research and discuss their oyster cage design. Using the BizzyB platform to take their product from idea to market, students will pitch their product in a virtual showcase event to a team of judges. The top three winners plus all participants will receive Microsoft gifts. In addition, the first-place winners will have the opportunity to prototype and test their design in real life. Taladay added, “The conference is free to STEMworks teachers, mentors, and students. For students without access to a device, STEMworks will make iPads available through our Lending Library.”
Our first virtual conference will support collaborations and mentorships among students and the STEM community, even after the conference ends.
Katie Taladay, STEMworks™ Program Manager
Apr 22, 2020 | Innovation
Maui Economic Development Board (MEDB) has lost a dear friend and dedicated STEMworks™ supporter with the passing of Irene Hirano Inouye, widow of the late United States Senator Daniel Inouye. Hirano Inouye was a nationally recognized leader in the nonprofit sector, with more than 35 years’ experience in nonprofit administration, community education, and public affairs. Her national reputation has been built on a record of vision, collaboration, and accomplishment, as well as an unyielding commitment to the values of fairness and individual opportunity.
Leslie Wilkins, MEDB President and CEO reflected, “In 2013, MEDB, with the endorsement of Hirano Inouye, established the Daniel K. Inouye (DKI) Innovation Award to honor the late Senator’s vision for Maui as an innovation center for the latest scientific and technological advances. She recognized the critical nature of MEDB’s work throughout its history to enhance education and training in our community.”
In past years, the senator and his wife headlined MEDB’s annual Ke Alahele Education Fund dinner, with proceeds used to support and administer MEDB-led STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) educational programs and to provide grants for STEM initiatives. “The DKI Award is presented to a Maui County project team that demonstrates the most innovative use of STEM tools and capabilities to serve and improve our community,” said Wilkins. “The Award is open to all Maui County students in grades 6-12 who submit a project that has a practical function and value to the community.”
Hirano Inouye received the Global Ambassador Award from the Price School for best representing the mission and expertise of the school in a global setting. She served as president of the Washington D.C.-based United States-Japan Council, which enhances relations between the two countries through people-to-people connections. In addition, Hirano Inouye has been recognized for her outstanding leadership as the former CEO and President of the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, and her service with prominent philanthropic and nonprofit boards across the country, including the Ford Foundation, The Kresge Foundation, the Smithsonian Institution, and the President’s Committee on the Arts & Humanities, among others.
Hirano Inouye was involved in nonprofit work early in her career, serving for 13 years with a clinic for low- and moderate-income women and families. She was a gracious humanitarian!
Leslie Wilkins, MEDB President & CEO
Apr 15, 2020 | Innovation
Mayor Michael Victorino recently announced $100,000 in grant funds to Maui Economic Development Board Inc. (MEDB) for local production of emergency ventilators to treat COVID-19. “This is very good news!” said Victorino. “Ventilators are crucial when it comes to effectively caring for COVID-19 patients, so having these companies producing them on island is a true blessing for our community. We also want to mahalo MEDB and the two companies for their partnership in producing these ventilators.”
There are several nationwide collaborations that are developing open-source plans for manufacturing ventilators, including a group from MIT, UT-Austin, UC-Irvine, and a few groups in Hawaii. On Maui, two locally-owned technology companies are immediately redeploying their engineering and machining capabilities to manufacture the ventilators. Maui Innovation Group, led by Dr. Ned Davis at the Maui Research and Technology Park, is currently developing breakthrough magnetic valve technology at the U.S. Air Force Academy. HNu Photonics, led by Dr. Dan O’Connell of Kahului, presently has their Maui-built biolab in orbit on the International Space Station.
“Our companies are in the process of retooling to manufacture ventilators to support Hawaii’s needs,” said O’Connell. “We were called to action to use our design and manufacturing facility to produce bridge ventilators that provide basic assisted-breathing mechanisms for various stages of patient treatment. We are working with multiple groups that have been assembled quickly in response to the growing urgency. These groups are sharing information about designs, plans, specifications, components, vendors, regulatory requirements, and safe operation.”
“Thank you to these local companies, founded by our talented tech professionals on Maui, for their efforts and willingness to step up during this time of need,” said Leslie Wilkins, MEDB President and CEO. “The effort is part of a nationwide emergency collaboration to recruit technology companies to fill national and local ventilator needs. The two Maui companies came together quickly on conference calls with national officials to discuss the details. Once they ramp up production they will be in a position to supply Hawaii with ventilators and help the national repository, but Maui is a first priority.”
Maui can be proud of its local businesses for meeting urgent community needs by using their technical knowledge and skills.
— Leslie Wilkins, MEDB President and CEO
Apr 8, 2020 | Community
Kyle Kawakami, Maui-born 2019 Chef of the Year, is continuously thinking of ways to help his Maui community. His philanthropy is endless. He is well known for placing an Aloha tip jar on the counter of his Maui Fresh Streatery Food Truck to help raise funds for those in need. Whether it is individuals or nonprofits, his gifts have totaled over $50,000. “The Pay it Forward program translates as Aloha Spirit,” Kawakami said. “We as a community need to come together during these times to support each other. Without compassion and caring for our kupuna, our neighbors, our friends, and our ohana we have nothing. It is what separates us from the rest of the world─ what makes us Hawaii.”
Kawakami is assisting the community in numerous ways. “First, we are using our location as a food hub to help local farmers and fish purveyors sell their harvests that are currently not moving,” he said. “Our first food hub was with Okoa Farms. They dropped off 20 boxes filled with a farmer’s choice of produce, which we sold for them, giving 100 percent of the proceeds back to the farm.”
Another community assistance program Kawakami implemented is Kokua Meals. Customers are able to make donations to purchase meals for families in need, children that normally receive free or subsidized lunches, socially isolated seniors, and others. “Today,” he said, “we had volunteers deliver 45 meals to those in the community, along with other donated food products such as fresh bread and sausage.”
Additionally, Kawakami changed his Maui Fresh Streatery service to address the current pandemic situation that we are in. “At this time, we have implemented a Zero Contact Service,” he explained. “Meals are cooked, packaged, and labeled. The zero contact comes upon pickup. Customers remain in their cars. When it is their turn to order we give an alcohol wipe to sanitize their hands and take payment. The food is placed on a table near the car for the customer to claim. Then, we sanitize the table for the next order. We will get through this together!”
Our Aloha tip jar is currently being used to assist with the Kokua Meals through our Pay it Forward program. You can’t shut down Aloha!
Kyle Kawakami, Maui Fresh Streatery Food Truck, Chef/Owner
Apr 1, 2020 | Events
Maui Economic Development Board (MEDB) sponsored approximately 30 people from around the world for the first 2020 meeting of the OpenMP Architecture Review Board (ARB). OpenMP is a software system that allows programmers to distribute work and data among different processors running concurrently in a computing system. Dr. Michael Klemm, CEO OpenMP ARB, said, “Working together face-to-face is an integral part of the development process for future OpenMP specifications. I want to thank MEDB for making our meeting possible on this beautiful island.”
The Maui High Performance Computing Center (MHPCC), through the University of Hawaii (UH), joined the OpenMP ARB in the fall of 2018. The group is responsible for maintaining an open standard that all computer companies, such as Intel, IBM, and many others, agree to support, and that meets the needs of national and international laboratories, universities, computer centers, and researchers worldwide. Often, these users want new features. The purpose of the meetings, held three times per year in different locations, is to bring users and people from the computer companies together to agree on how new features should be added to the standard.
“The MHPCC strives to drive our needs into commercially available products while advancing its computing capabilities with the latest technology that industry has to offer,” said Lt. Col. Scott Pierce, USAF, MHPCC Director. “The OpenMP consortium gives us the opportunity to engage with industry, academic, and international partners to develop standards and tools. These tools build the computational base by which we can model, simulate, design, and develop systems across many of our modernization priorities.”
Dr. Alice Koniges, UH Research Principal Investigator, is the primary representative from MHPCC and UH on the OpenMP ARB. She is also a Maui author, with two co-authors, of a new book, The OpenMP Common Core, just released from the MIT Press. “Our book fills a major gap in parallel programming, explaining a method to reduce the amount of time to run a computer program,” Koniges said. “It offers an introduction to widely used features in OpenMP and describes how to use them to solve a range of programming problems.”
Using a wide assortment of exercises, our book guides readers through the most essential elements of writing parallel code to become effective programmers
Alice Koniges, Ph.D., UH Research Principal Investigator
