 to Energy Wednesday, the State of Clean Energy. I'm Sharon Moriwaki, co-host, well no, hosting today with special guest, Lauren Tonakawa, from Energy Accelerators, or what is it? Elemental now. Elemental Accelerators now. Jay's on vacation, he's cruising Alaska, so I'm here with Lauren and we will guide you through 100% innovation today. We've been pleased to have Lauren with us through the month of July telling us about all of the innovations that Elemental Accelerator has been working on and I'm really pleased she's closing our series to tell us about not only Elemental Accelerators but innovation to 100% renewables and also about a bigger picture of what's on the horizon. So welcome back Lauren and thank you for hosting the series with us and being our special guest today. Thanks for having me Sharon, it's been a pleasure to join you and Jay for the month of July. Thank you, so tell us, what are the big innovations that you see coming on? Oh, Lauren also has a column in the Starry Advertiser on innovations and entrepreneurs and I wanted to pick Lauren's brain and have her share with us. What's on the horizon as well as what she sees in all of the entrepreneurs and innovations that she's been interviewing and developing? Yeah, I think in a previous show I had mentioned we're in due diligence in selecting our newest cohort of companies, our 2018 cohort and this year has been our most diverse applicant pool. So we've of course seen a lot of energy companies but we've also seen a lot in the mobility and transportation space as well as water, cyber and IoT as it applies to energy and infrastructure. But all areas, all interconnected. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's interesting to see how a very similar technology especially in software can be applied to solve different problems. So most of the companies, software companies or are there more heavy equipment type companies or some planning companies or are they mostly all in innovative software? Yeah, almost all of the companies that apply have a software component but a good amount also have hardware or offer a service. So we get all three types of companies and usually there's a handful of them who blend hardware, software and service together. So for the viewers out there who are interested and are innovative, what are the kinds of criteria you look for if not totally software, not totally hardware, what do you look for in a company that you can help grow? Yeah, one of the things we really look at is the team and the people involved and beyond the technology, the team and their experience whether the founder or CEO has started a company in the past or if they have experience in a startup and raising money and their ability to be collaborative, those are our qualities of a strong team that we've seen in some of our companies and also applicants. And that somewhat relates to the Star Advertiser column, which you mentioned earlier, and being able to interview people in our ecosystem because at the end of the day, it is the people that drive the innovation forward. So how do you select these people to interview or what do you look for for your column beyond the elemental accelerator? What attracts you to say, hey, I wanna interview you, I wanna know more about your company? Yeah, well, through the work that I do, I've been fortunate enough to meet a number of very interesting people. The first person I interviewed and the person I kicked off my column with was a colleague of mine, Maurice Kaya. Every time anyone hears his name, it always brings a smile to their face. So I thought that he'd be a great person to interview and I just enjoy talking to him in general. He has many stories of hard and good times working in this space in Hawaii and we've been fortunate enough to keep him around. So what is Maurice doing these days? Detraction, but yeah, we all interested in Maurice and what he's doing. He's almost like the father of clean energy here in the state way back, way back when. Yeah, I mean, after spending two decades at the state energy office and then breaking off to start what would become elemental accelerator with Don, he's been enjoying family time a lot more, which is great. He has a couple of grandkids that he visits pretty often. Even more regards, we miss seeing him. He's still around. Oh, good, good. He's at the office every once in a while. Oh, good, yeah. Yeah, you have to keep him around. Yeah, his wisdom is irreplaceable. So what are the other guests that you've interviewed or people that you've interviewed for your columns and where are they and how they've moved along? Yeah, so I've interviewed a couple of our entrepreneurs. One in particular had made the tough decision to wind down the operations of his company. So seeing the other side of the startup, you hear a lot about being able to raise money and new customers and new partners, but often startups and entrepreneurs and the CEOs and founders have to make tough decisions as well. And so one of the quotes that stuck out to me was that he said, as a CEO, you have to be unrealistically optimistic, but at the same time, you have to wanna kill your company. You have to wanna poke holes in it, and where you can't poke holes is where you find success. That's great. Yeah, it's a good adage to live by if you're an entrepreneur, you're really looking to the future, yeah? Wow, that's good. And part of it is most of the people are gonna be in that space, right? I mean, very few are really successful and really can take off, but we look for that success and what are the ingredients, and yet when it doesn't work, how can you be sort of realistic and also a good manager to say, hey, I need to move on to something else? Yeah, the ability to fail forward and use each experience as a learning experience is something we also look for and great entrepreneurs and great people to invite into our ecosystem. Yeah, that's good. So what other lessons learned that you can share with the audience on innovation, entrepreneurship, clean energy and the space on how you develop and grow? I mean, even through failure, you grow. Yeah, one of the, so my last column, I had the chance to interview a person by the name of Guy Kawasaki. Oh, yes. I was another name we all know from Hawaii. He grew up in Hawaii, graduated from Ilawani School, the class of 1972, I believe. And then eventually his career went to go on to work at Apple in the 80s and 90s and is a widely known name in Silicon Valley. His professional career has been mostly in tech, so not specifically energy or the areas that we focus on, but still you can just talking to him, you can tell he thinks like an innovator and an entrepreneur, like focused on pace and focused on not breaking the status quo. So talk a little bit more about that, the pace and not breaking the status quo because everybody thinks you've got to build and you've got to move and what is that pace and what is that way in which you have to move forward without going too far ahead so that you lose the market, I guess, right? Yeah, I mean you can't build a company in a bubble. So in my conversation with Guy, I was talking to him, he was asking a lot of questions about what's happening in Hawaii, what's happening in the energy space, and we were talking about his goal to get to 100% renewable energy and I told him the goal is to reach that mark by the year 2045 and his only question was why so long and why would it take that long to get to 100% renewable energy? And that to me is the mark of an entrepreneur and an innovator, they're always thinking they can go faster. So do you have suggestions as to how you would move it along faster in 2045? Like, you know, in 10 years or? Yeah, I mean he didn't offer any specific suggestions since energy isn't his domain, but I mean he's aware that the technology is out there and it's not a matter of technology, it's a matter of people and in place and policy and well, yeah, and innovative thinking frameworks. So based on all of these people that you've talked to and knowing entrepreneurs that you've grown along the way with the elemental accelerators and before that energy accelerators, what do you think are the essential ingredients to making it all happen, to innovation to 100%? I mean just, you know, sort of Lauren's prophecy. I mean, seeing what you see, knowing what you know and experienced, what kinds of things you think are the key ingredients that we need to really move it forward because we've kind of been sort of shredding water a little bit, we go a little bit, we kind of say, yeah, we'll try this or we'll try that. What might be some things that you've gained over the years? Yeah, I can tell you what we look for in people, just beyond them having a strong business and technical background. The collaboration piece is really important to us. The ability to listen and really listen to people in this ecosystem if this is your market and get to know their pain points and be able to quickly adapt your solution and the way you communicate what you do to meet those pain points. And within our portfolio and within our cohorts, we select companies that have potential for collaboration and that can work together to solve a particular problem. And so being open to working with other startups in our portfolio in a collaborative versus a competitive way. And hold that collaboration on what that means versus competitive because we're gonna take a short break and we'll be right back and hear more about collaboration to get to 100%. You're watching Think Tech Hawaii which streams live on thinktechhoai.com, uploads to YouTube and broadcasts on cable OC16 and Olelo 54. Great content for Hawaii from Think Tech. Aloha, my name is Raya Salter and I'm the host of Power Up Hawaii which you can see live at from one to 130 every Tuesday at thinktechhawaii.com and then later on YouTube. I am an energy attorney, clean energy advocate and community outreach specialist and on Power Up Hawaii we come together to talk about how can Hawaii walk towards a clean, renewable and just energy future. To do that we talk to stakeholders all over the spectrum from clean energy technology folks to community groups, to politicians, to regulators, to the utility. So please join us Tuesdays at one o'clock for Power Up Hawaii. Aloha, my name is Steven Phillip Katz. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist and I'm the host of Shrinkwrap Hawaii where I talk to other shrinks. Did you ever want to get your head shrunk? Well, this is the best place to come to pick one. I've been doing this. We must have 60 shows with a whole bunch of shrinks that you can look at. I'm here on Tuesdays at three o'clock every other Tuesday. I hope you are too. Aloha. Back, I'm Sharon Moriwaki, co-chair of the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum and with me today is my special guest here from Elemental Accelerators, Lauren Tanokawa who is the communications lead for energy. Elemental, I have get used to that. Elemental accelerators. And before the break, we were talking about collaboration, the importance of collaboration for any success to get to 100% or any success in the market. And she was telling me about teams versus family and how that perspective will change and be much more effective if you look at a team instead of a family. So I wanted her to explain to us what that means. Yeah, we describe our portfolio of 53 companies at sort of the elemental, an extension of our team. And we think of it like a high-performing like professional sports team. Okay. Yeah, where entry is earned and you become like once you're entered into the team, then the team is you and you are the team. And I think of like two really great teams that stick out in my mind. The Yankees of the 1990s and the Celtics in 2007. And one of the quotes that really sticks out to me is from Derek Jeter when he was ending his career with the Yankees as one of the best short stops to ever play the game. He said every day he felt like he's, every day when he stepped onto the field, he felt like he was running a spot. Even though he had all the accolades, had all the stats, was the starting shortstop for decades, he still felt the pressure and the motivation to perform and earn his spot on the field. And so that's sort of how we think of our portfolio and even our team. So that's why when we were talking over the last month that each of your cohort members feel part of the team. So they come back and they contribute and they help each other along within the cohort as well as their successors. Yeah. And when one company succeeds, we all celebrate as a portfolio and as a part of the element. So that sounds like a family to me. So how is that different than a family as you were mentioning? Yeah, I mean, there are definitely elements, family elements within. I guess you can't kick a family off a team. No. You would kick anybody off your team because it seems like it solidifies you. Yeah, yeah. There is a bond between us and our companies and between like myself and my team members and my colleagues that I work with that is very like a family. Like a family. Yeah, we all share the same values working for the same mission, but we're all working extremely hard to be able to achieve that. So what binds? I mean, I can see, you know, I come from the psychology background where we say, oh, it's cognitive dissonance and if you go through a lot to get in and you're accepted, then even if you have to earn your place on the team every day, you feel that you've been through a lot of stress that you're bound, so to speak. But is there something more than that or is it the once you earned your spot, you wanna keep your spot? I mean, maybe that's a way in which our team isn't necessarily like a professional sports team. It's less competition and more collaboration. Once you get on the team. Yeah, once you're either hired into an organization or a part of a portfolio, we're all looking for ways to uplift ourselves as a whole. And we're all working towards a really similar mission. And when we talk collaboration, because that's kind of the buzzword these days, collaboration, integration, what are the elements you think that's the most effective in your collaborating and people feeling that they're part of this team and it's a bond to do better? I don't know if it's the values or the mission. What are those elements to have that kind of strength in going forward together and helping each other? Yeah, one thing that we do as a team is we're very open. So we have open meeting policies where any team member can attend any meeting on the calendar. And this is anybody in the cohort or anybody on the staff? Yeah, anybody on our staff. And that helps to create a sense of bond between our team and that there are no barriers to access information. And it helps us, especially me in communications, do my job better so I know what's going on with other parts of our team. So what is the team, the staff team at Elemental? Is that communications and management? Yeah, so the way we're organized are in circles. So there's a communication circle, there's an operation circle. And operations covers what the staffing or the internal organization are. Yeah, HR, admin, contracting for our companies. So there's communications operations and then there's our portfolio circle where we have one person leading our go-to-market track and another leading our demonstration. And then a couple of their team members leading partnerships specifically for the companies in there and then we also have a partnership circle which manage and build our global partner program. And is that part of the cohorts, they come out of the cohorts or that's separate in a partner, separate partners? And where do the cohorts know the graduates? You know, what circle are they in? Yeah, so that's like our core team. And beyond that, we have our portfolio companies. And the portfolio companies are different than your cohort graduates. Our cohort graduates make up our portfolio. I see, okay. And the affiliates or the partner partners external to that are like what kinds of companies are those? They are where you intern people? Yeah, so our global partners are folks like Hawaiian Electric as well as General Electric. So GE and their venture team. TEPCO, which is the utility from Japan. Vector, which is the utility in New Zealand. That's pretty impressive. Yeah, and we have a number of other partners similar to those that are strategic for us as well as our companies. So, and the partners are helping, I mean, with the cohorts, I mean, they help train the cohorts or is it broader than that, the funding basin and sponsorships of things? Is that a general? They're interested in the companies in our portfolio either from an investment standpoint or in collaborating and doing demonstration projects with them. So, and are there governments also? Are these all mostly just private companies? Yeah, so we have public and private partners. So, the Navy is one of our biggest funders and a part of our global advisory board, the Department of Energy and the State of Hawaii. Those are three public. So, when you talk collaboration, because collaboration we think of as the private sector and the public sector and how can we get them together and within the public sector, how can we get different departments or different sectors of the public, of government together? Have you had that kind of challenge or working with any of that in terms of helping your companies thrive? Yeah, that's part of the reason and the impetus for building the Global Advisory Board is to bring like our startups to these larger and more established organizations like the Navy, like the State of Hawaii, like the utilities within our Global Advisory Board and help them implement innovative projects and solutions into their business model, their operations. Okay, let's go beyond elemental and kind of see what you've learned over the years and where you see the horizon for energy. We have a daunting goal, although Guy says, oh, why, it could be done next year, right? But if we were to look realistically into the future, we look at what you've learned in collaboration, public-private sectors, as well as innovative minds and collaborative parts. What do you see on the horizon and what do you think we really need to do for government to support, for policy to drive, for the market to be developed? From your perspective of having met all of these numbers of people who are interested in the energy space as well as beyond, because everything's integrated, water, energy, egg, teraviva that we were going to move. What do you think? So we're looking actually at what you just mentioned, the nexus of energy and agriculture, the nexus of water and agriculture, transportation and energy. And we're looking at companies who can thrive at that nexus. So for example, teraviva is a really good example. They're an agriculture company, but their crop produces biofuel that can contribute toward our energy goals. And WaterSmart is another example there, software company for monitoring, controlling residential water usage. So they're working with a board of water supply on that. And, but water is very interconnected to energy because it takes a lot of energy to pump water and water to refine oil for electricity. So we're looking at companies that operate in multiple industries whose solution can impact multiple industries. Is that everything is interconnected? Yeah. So if you had one minute to tell the audience, what is it that you learn and what is on the horizon that we should be excited about for the next five, 10 years? What might that be and tell us? Yeah, I think we can be excited about innovation thriving here in Hawaii and building that here locally. And it's not just the startups who are innovative, but it's everybody in this ecosystem that has the potential to be innovators and think differently. And we should proceed and we should really not think that we can't do it, but think that we can always do it. It's great. And thank you, Lauren. We really appreciate you're bringing us this whole month of innovation and entrepreneurs. And I do want to remind people that this month, or next month actually, August 28th will be our Hawaii Clean Energy Day. Hope you come too. And we are focusing on pathways to clean transportation. And you can register now at our website, which is HawaiiEnergyPolicy.Hawaii.edu. And we have a really full program as usual. And this year we are going to be not only having people speak to us and with us, but giving you an opportunity to have dialogue. We have Dr. Richard Lum, who's with Vision Foresight Strategy. He's going to start a conversation among us and see if we can get some targets, some metrics, and some real action to clean transportation. So join us. And thank you, and aloha. Thank you, Lauren. Aloha. Thank you guys. Yeah.