The Sultan brothers are a major new force in Hawaii’s venture capital and startup communities. Their two platforms are Sultan Ventures, a Hawaii-based venture capital firm, and XLR8UH. Last year, the two of you and UH launched XLR8UH, a public-private startup accelerator to commercialize research at UH. Why Hawaii? Omar: Our sister, Aya, came here to do her medical residency…
WAIALUA, Oahu – Liz Ryan takes a bite of asparagus, just plucked from the ground at Twin Bridge Farms in Waialua. “Man, that’s good,” says the 59-year-old from Hot Springs, Arizona, who had never eaten fresh-picked asparagus before. “It’s a lot more tender than I expected. I expected it to be bitter and chewy. I’m going to start eating asparagus…
LEFT TO THE ELEMENTS AND CHILDREN, outdoor sand sculptures won’t survive more than a day or so, but professional sand sculptor Riki Inzano says part of their beauty is their fleeting existence. “It’s meant to be a temporary art form for picture sake and memory sake, to live in the moment,” she says. “Not everything lasts forever and appreciate it…
During her orientation at the Hawaiian Humane Society, Shelley Pang listened carefully to all the roles she could play as a volunteer. “Everyone wanted to walk the dogs; I was like, ‘Let me see what no one else wants to do.’ So every Sunday morning, I clean. I scrub walls and scoop poop and clean the 26 kennels.” Pang works…
THE HONOLULU FIRE DEPARTMENT says fire safety and lives are more important than traditional Christmas trees in public spaces Fresh cut Christmas trees – the same kind you may have in your living room every December – can no longer be used to decorate the common areas of hotels and apartment buildings? The ban on fresh cut Christmas trees has…
A reliable cell phone signal is still hard to find in the sleepy town of Kaunakakai, but the robots have arrived. Kim Svetin’s family owns Molokai Drugs, the island’s only drugstore. Behind the counter, it’s Svetin’s Uncle Jon, her sister Kelly – and the Parata Max, a pharmacy robot that fills prescriptions for the top 150 drugs, doing the…
THE OLD ADAGE still matters in Hawaii’s top hotels: Every little thing counts. That commitment to seemingly small things – greeting you by name when you check in, smiling at you with every interaction – has kept two hotels as the most honored in the Islands: the Four Seasons Resorts at Hualalai on Hawaii Island and at Wailea on Maui. Both…
Decomposition – the kind that occurs at landfills and wastewater treatment plants – creates natural gas, and there are moves locally to harvest that gas and use it for energy. Natural gas is primarily methane, which can be burned to create electricity with a turbine or power the engine of a natural-gas vehicle. But the biogas that comes from decomposition…
“When we log onto our computers to check email, buy something from Amazon or watch a movie on Netflix, it seems almost magical. We don’t see the inner workings that make this happen. What enables all of these things we take for granted are transpacific cables,” says Su Shin, executive director of corporate communications at Hawaiian Telcom. In late March,…
At UH, you can walk into a classroom on the West Oahu campus to take a course on video game development with students who are 20 miles away in Manoa. Forget what you thought you knew about distance learning. These student-developers aren’t passively watching a lecture or talking via teleconference. On both campuses, students and teachers sit in virtual-reality environments…
“ABOUT $1.1 BILLION A YEAR IS PAID OUT IN PENSION BENEFITS NOW (TO STATE AND COUNTY WORKERS). IN THE NEXT 10 TO 20 YEARS, THAT’S PROJECTED TO GROW TO ABOUT $2 BILLION A YEAR.” –WESLEY MACHIDA Director, State Department of Budget and Finance Baby Boomers have wreaked demographic havoc on both Hawaii and the nation for seven decades, and they’re…
When Billy Ng told his former boss at Island Sign Service Inc. that he and his brother, Min, wanted to eventually buy the business, his boss didn’t think the two would succeed. “Imagine, we were two immigrant boys from Cambodia who had never owned a business before. He didn’t think we’d make it!” remembers Billy Ng. Nineteen years later, they…
Name: Kelsey Nishi Job: Calligrapher Experience: One year Start: Most local fashionistas know Nishi for her jewelry line, Padma & Pickles, named after her Labradoodle and rescue cat. But a year ago, she picked up a calligraphy pen and found another passion. “It was just the most fun thing,” says Nishi, 28, owner of Hawaii Calligraphy. “I read a bazillion…
A group of architects and their supporters have a plan to transform unused buses into shelters and hygiene facilities for homeless people, and are now looking for funding and a nonprofit partner. This illustration shows how the inside of a city bus can be partitioned to provide a shelter for homeless people. “This is not a solution to housing,” says…
It is obvious to anyone who has been there or seen it shining in the distance, that the summit of Mauna Kea is a sacred place. Native Hawaiians are not unique in this reverence: Virtually all the great religions venerate high places. The book of Exodus says God talked to Moses and gave him the 10 Commandments on Mount Sinai;…
There was a time when the term “mindfulness” evoked visions of a man in a loincloth, sitting serenely atop a mountain. But the corporate world is changing and, today, mindfulness can mean a Reyn Spooner-clad manager serenely sitting atop … a desk chair. Companies such as Apple, Google, Coca- Cola, Safeway, Deutsche Bank, and Proctor and Gamble have incorporated mindfulness…
Hawaii Business magazine is pleased to announce the Top 100 Realtors for 2015 – the gold standard in identifying the state’s top performers. This list is the only objective ranking of real estate agents in Hawaii for the ninth consecutive year. Included in this section are rankings for most transactions, vacant land sales and top real estate companies in 2014,…
WHAT IS THE BOSS? BOSS stands for the Business Outlook and Sentiment Survey and it’s conducted twice a year for Hawaii Business by QMark Research. It provides a revealing picture of Hawaii’s economy by asking about 400 business leaders twice a year how their individual companies are doing on key indicators such as revenue, employment and profit. It also asks…
David Ige surprised political observers last year by upsetting incumbent Neil Abercrombie in the Democratic primary, then beating Duke Aiona and Mufi Hannemann in the general election to become governor. Senior writer Dennis Hollier asked Ige about successes and controversies from his first five months in office. What has been your biggest success so far? I believe our leadership team…