 Right afternoon, folks. Once again, here we are on the Think Tech Studio's downtown studio, overlooking Honolulu. Actually, overlooking Wamanoa Bay. We transposed the studio at the Wamanoa for this particular episode. Ted Rawson here, hosting our show, Where the Drone Leads. As you know, we bring subjects of local interest and national interest to our viewership here. And today we have two first-timers on the show. First time on the show for Kainoa, Eminus, and Maika Motas. We've known each other for a couple of years now, I guess, or so, but the first time you've been on the show. First time on the show? Let me tell you how it works. Once you're on the show, you get to come back. And if you really want it, you can have the show. Whenever you're ready. Anyway, Kainoa and Maika are CTO and CEO of a local establishment called Kolea Gold LLC. Yes. And as you can see, we've got a couple of drones on the table here, and a couple of drone pilots sitting right behind us. As of this week, you guys are legal drone pilots, right? Yes, we are. And I'll add a third to that. This is probably the only TV show in the nation that has all three people on the panel. Just recent graduates of the FAA-107 program and carrying paper in our pockets now that prove it. Yeah, ready to prove to everybody that we're certified pilots. You know, there's been so much change in the last year since we first met. First we had public aircraft ops, then we had 333 exemptions, and now we have 107. It's kind of confusing for all the people out there. We do this show and bring people on who actually are in the business so that viewers can understand what is actually going on. So with the FAA-107 certificate, you are now free to run out and do commercial operations for folks who need aerial photography or some other kind of imagery within the constraints of 107. Yes, yes. And we definitely look forward to providing that service. I mean, when we first started, we started with, in fact, with this bird, with the Phantom 1. And really, we learned so much about this drone and about the whole aircraft that brought us all the way up to the Phantom 3. And Phantom 4 is already out, so you can tell as aircrafts, you know, gradually improve and get a lot better. It's more important for us, for Kolea Gold, was understanding the rules, understanding the regulations, and basically figuring out this whole industry from a basement out in Maka, Kero. Which makes sense, because nobody else understood it either. I mean, it all just started in the last short time. And you guys are kind of at the top edge of this thing, so everybody can learn from your experiences while you're heavy on the show. So tell us a little bit about Kolea Gold and about how it started and what kind of products you offer and services, how to get a hold of you, where you're located, and how people can engage you for work that they want to do. Right, okay. Don't forget your CTO. Yeah, of course not. Of course me. So, yeah, we started out in about two years ago and we started with this drone. I was out in the White Knight Coast and learning about this hobby and trying to actually realizing, hey, this actually can be something for the future. I have a passion for media and have a passion for travel. And so when I got into the drones, I was like, oh man, maybe this is something that I recall, Kainoa. Kainoa was an engineer and he was part of a STEM program in Orange Coast College. And what we wanted to do basically was learn the inside of the aircraft. So we opened it up. We opened it up and we were like, okay, this is soldering. This is a circuit board. Here we go. Kainoa came in and he's explaining in details, just like an engineer would, of how this is operating. This is basically on computer. That's receiving all these coding, all these algorithms that, hey, you need to figure this out. And more so for us as entrepreneurs, we got involved with workshops and I attended Julie Purcell's entrepreneur class. And that's where I got this whole beginning of starting a business. So you guys really put this together from a business perspective. You got engineering and technology. You got the ideas of the market and such. And you have the framework of business that is tying it all together. Which is really quite excellent because a lot of folks probably don't include that last part. And a lot of them probably don't include the technical part either. They just get the product out of the box and go use it. In fact, I was just, as you were mentioning, this is a two-year-old Phantom 1. That may be one of the only ones left in the nation, a two-year-old Phantom 1. I would think most of them are in the ocean or up against the Golaus or something like that right now. Yeah, that was the main thing. I mean, Kainoa basically was explaining to us that if we're going to operate these drones, we need to understand how to fix them. And that's where we started. We started fixing drones. We contacted a few people who saw their video and were like, hey, we noticed you're using a drone. And they're like, oh, can you repair it for us? Because we crashed already. I was like, oh, yeah, not a problem. We would go and take a look. And that's when we realized, OK, we're officially doing something that can be taxed. So we need to have the legalities of how to run a business. And so that's when we applied as an LLC at the Business Action Center. And we basically took one step at a time. We didn't want to rush as bad as we did because everybody's already using it for commercial. And they don't even realize that. So you followed the rules all the way through, which is really incredible. And you had it on a technical basis to begin with, which is even more than incredible. And that turned out so many projects that we, as our younger generation, we wanted to jump on it as soon as we could. But that's where our values and our understandings of what this particular machine can do and what it could do for from a commercial perspective. And there are also negatives. And as we started to research and develop our own types of SOPs, as you sort of understood, on taking future projects on, we began to run into legalities and what types of things that you need to understand and be aware of that it's not really out there since this is such a new industry. There's not too much places where it's really on the board where other than FAA, you got to look through their confusing website, which is pretty confusing. Let's just take that thought for a minute. We were going to talk about that and make sure everybody watching this has the opportunity to learn from the three of us and others online. Learning to fly these are one thing. Learning to repair them is another thing. Learning the legalities and such. That's all very important. But the most important thing is to be able to use the IACRA website at the FAA. And for those who have a temporary certificate or similar certificate that's stuck in the system, the answer is this, use Google Chrome to get all the way through the submit button. When you get to the submit button and it doesn't work on Google Chrome, switch over to Internet Explorer and then knock down the pop-ups. And you'll be able to get your application submitted. And later on, when you get the certificate, you can print it. Otherwise, it's not going to work. In this world, there could be 107 temporary certificates that are stuck there forever. If a guy doesn't understand, you've got to go to Internet Explorer at the end of the day to get the thing out. So that's just back to the script. That's our public service for today. Letting people know that they've got to know how to run the FAA IACRA website. Yeah, it's very important, too. Because if not, you're just not going to get a certificate. No paper, no flag. No paper, no flag. Exactly. So this is, again, the fact that you must have repaired this 10 times. This is a two-year-old Phantom, more than 10 times. More than 10 times. We repaired motors. We repaired circuit board, motherboard. We repaired resoldering the motor to the circuit board. So there's a lot of customization to this, I guess you could call it dinosaur. Okay. But what goes through my mind is that that learning that you went through, that experience you generated, the failures that occurred, and then what you did to recover from them, that actually fits the big picture that UH is getting into very soon in the state of Hawaii. State of Hawaii, UH managing this component, and Alaska and Oregon are part of the Pan-Pacific Unmanned Air Systems Test and Research Complex, our test range complex. UPPUTRC is called. And the three universities through the three states are supposed to be generating testing opportunities for UAS operations beyond what 106... Just like that, okay? You got to go fix that. That was set up, wasn't it? Yep. But the whole idea is to find those operations of UAS with Benefit Hawaii or Benefit Oregon or Alaska, as the case may be, but are not permitted by the current rules of 107, which you all know very well since you just passed the test last week, for beyond line of sight cluster operations, whether... Full autonomous, yeah, whether limits... And of course the environmental issues that aren't part of the rules, but like saltwater intrusion or saltwater intrusion, as you, I'm sure, have experienced many times. So our task is to figure out what those missions are that would be useful in Hawaii that are beyond the limits of the FAA rules today and do testing with companies participating to find out what breaks, what fails, and then what works, and what has to be converted into a standard or a certification criteria or even a test function. And then that, when the rule changes to include that next level of operation such as beyond line of sight, that rule will be informed by the experience that we generate. So you're partway down that path already, the way you're operating both at the technical level and the operational level. So we need to get your thinking in helping the state of Hawaii figure out what these missions are and then how to draw suppliers in to run tests in these areas. One area in particular is mosquito-borne illness eradication. And if you've got the, you can get the truck with the larvae in it, which are DNA-edited, up to a certain point, but you have to get the larvae into a pond a quarter mile away in the middle of the Koalao canopy. I can do that. That's pretty hard. Exactly. And either you tramp all day and damage the environment as you do it, or you get a UAV and go in there and do it, right? Which means you've got to get up above the canopy, go over and drop down into a hole where the pond is and drop off the larvae. Well, that violates a lot of things right now. And it's beyond line of sight, for example. And you may need two. You may need one UAV up on top providing a relay, a communications relay, and one down in the hole dropping off the larvae. So you've got two. So that's also a violation of the current rule. So that's the kind of thing we need to tee up, define as a mission, and then go do testing against. And I think where you guys are is halfway down that path already because you've got the experience and you've noticed that you have to fix things a lot. And fixing things a lot has to turn back into design standards to prevent that from being the case. So I think I applaud you for what you guys are doing. I also applaud you totally for the fact that you're paying so close attention to the rules and to the learning required to understand the rules because it doesn't exist out there in a cohesive form right now, or a coherent form. To us, it took a lot of discipline and energy. I mean, we are really appreciated all the opportunities that came our way with using UAVs and drones. And so our main focus, though, was R&D. I mean, an education was more our... For example, going out with you when we first met and going out to CoCoPoint, that was valued to us because of our culture. We were born and raised here in Hawaii. For myself, I went to Hawaiian Immersion School. We both graduated from a private school at Marano and we wanted to incorporate all this education that we have from our home and now, you know, give back to the community. And, you know, another issue, you bring up the mosquitoes. One that we're looking at that we really want to tackle is called Olave. That's something that our older generation... Is this a removal? Yes. Yes, something in that... That is a perfect example of the sort of thing that this PPU-TRC activity should be doing. Let's take that thought for a moment and think about it over the break and come back after the break and develop it into some next steps. How's that? Definitely. Okay. Oh, ha! Big Jackal! University of Hawaii football team under Rolovich is going to kick butt this season. In case you didn't understand me, University of Hawaii football team is going to kick butt under Rolovich this season. So, if you're to follow us on Think Tech Hawaii and Hibachi Top, I'll be at every game. And remember, aloha! Hi, I'm Donna Blanchard. I'm the host of Center Stage, which is on Wednesdays at 2 o'clock here on Think Tech. On Center Stage, I talk with artists about not only what they do and how they do it, but the meat of the conversation for me is why they do it, why we go through this. A lot of us are not making our livings doing this, and a lot of us would do this with our last dying breath if we had that choice. And that's what I love to talk to people about. I hope you enjoy watching it, and I hope you get inspired because there's an artist inside G2. Join us on Center Stage at 2 o'clock on Wednesdays. Bye. Ted Rawlsson here, Friday afternoon, folks. The Think Tech Hawaii studio is downtown, and we've got our guests today. We've got Kainoa, Eminiz, and Michael Motos. Yes. From Kolea Gold LLC, a newly formed company that's pushing back the frontiers of the future for us here in Hawaii with drones, and we were talking during the break about some really interesting and important applications that could come from something like this right here in Hawaii. And you mentioned the UXO situation on Kaho'olawe as something that could be discovered, detected, and mapped in some way to assist the ground crews going in. I've been on the island. I went over there with the PKO a couple of years ago, and I got to haul a lot of rocks. How was that experience? That was very cool. But, you know, we take for granted a well-established, easily accessible island like Oahu. We don't understand what it's like when that isn't the case, and you're onto something. Tell us a little bit about how you might think of drones affecting or assisting or enhancing or making more safe the action of the UXO on Kaho'olawe. Yeah, my first time going to Kaho'olawe was with a Kaipuni or a Hawaiian immersion school, Kekulokaiipuni or Nanakuli, and I was only sixth grade, and we're going on to this, you know, our home, Kaho'olawe, where, you know, this is our hail to Papahanaumoku, and going there, you know, learning about how can we have, you know, with our knowledge with drones, like what can we do, you know, a film office called, we were like, oh, do we have to get permits to film, and then we're like, wait, our bigger picture is we want to help clear this path. There's a mission right now. I don't recall the name of the path, but they're trying to create a path and the safest way for them to create it. Why not use our technology? You know, we better get George Helm would say, do your homework. Thus, you know, one Hawaiian hero that we look up to and he would say, you know, hey, do your homework. And that's what we did. We got into this industry and we're like, look, we can help, we can help our community. This is something that can really benefit us and finish the path. You know, that's what we are. We're pathfinders and it's kind of suitable. We're like, okay, let's do it. Now, as far as using what we can do and how we can get an aircraft over there and what we're still on that one step at a time, trying to find that particular aircraft that we can operate, right? With our exemption, it's going to have to be an exemption. And then you have to roll to your CTO and talk about the sensor and the sensor analytics and the software that's going to go along with that so that the signals that are evident from UXO can be identified. And that would be probably nitrogen in chemical characterization of the atmosphere and maybe some indication of the disturbed earth and maybe some altered... Craters, some craters as well. Sure, obvious ones, right. And the ones that are not obvious because they've been washed over by the sea or by the wind all these years would be NDVI or some other vegetation index that might indicate that there was vegetation there at one time, it's been killed off and there's an edge, maybe where the edge of the vegetation is, is another marker of where that might be. So you have a great opportunity. This is like a great student project. You could get students that are very involved in this thing, right? Right. Yeah, definitely. I mean, even more students. That's a goal that we're going for especially for education and our history. And you know, I was just at IUCN this week talking to the Air Force guys there and they all have the same issue. That is, it's not just UXO on Kahua Lave. There's land mines and there's IEDs and there's a lot of explosive material in a lot of places. And not only that, there's also simply damaged habitat and so discovering all these kinds of disruptions that have occurred so that they can be corrected. That's a big center task, CTO, okay? And so coming back to that and thinking of that in the context of the Hawaii's obligation under the Pan-Pacific unmanned air systems test range complex we could define tasks that start with what you thought of and extend to maybe beyond the online site. They could extend to the other side of the cliff or something like down the cliff or something. And this could become the tasking that then defines what the state of Hawaii's contribution to this activity should be. And it starts right here in your own experience. Yeah, it does, it definitely does. I mean, how you have... So, we have this, but you also have to introduce the fact that you're into commercial business. And everybody out there who wants to get photography done or get imagery of various types or see a perspective they've never seen in a video they can get a hold of you. And provided we're in Class G airspace or have a letter of agreement if it's lower than Class G and have the landowner's permission and all the other things we know about from 1107 and you've got your maintenance done which you are on top of totally and addressed all those issues of aviation decision making you can go forward and do work for people. So how do people get a hold of you? That's where to get a hold of us you can contact us at area code 808-551-1640 or you can go to collego.com and that's where you can find out more about our company and what we provide. Right now, Kaino and I are sort of pilots and that's what we're striving for, just going out to production companies going out to all these companies that we've saw and they were doing their own work and we're like, oh, I hope they really know what they're really doing right now and with all respect, this is only on island and to understand business, as an entrepreneur we all want tired rises, we all rise, right? And that's what we saw, we was like, okay instead of getting frustrated and trying to go out of the matter, how about we go at a good positive, you know, a point of way to approach them and let them know, hey, by the way, we're pilots and we have our certificates, we have our insurance if you folks are, you know, interested, like, oh, yeah, we do have drone work, just we'll call you and it's funny, we're hanging up here, like we know, you know, we've started the market we have to do our homework, so let's say your number again, so we can get up on the screen yeah, 808-551-1640 808-551-1640 1640, okay, and they can also find Kolea Gold on the web yep, on the website, and you folks can find us on Instagram as well at Kolea Gold LLC so Kolea Gold probably has only one identification on all the web, that's a fairly unusual name and in terms of trademark names and such tell us a little bit about how you came to that name Kolea Gold for your enterprise Kolea Gold, oh, so our name started with there was a mentor of mine by the name of Mahi Lapierre and he, it's funny, we were walking around the Yolani Palace and he presented to me this feather and he said, hey, this is gold and I was like, okay, well, what is it? Little did I know that this bird was going to symbolize you know, it's a golden plover that travels from Alaska here, you know, migrates and breaking down the story that this bird in our Hawaiian culture was always looked at like a bird that would take everything and leave it didn't have a positive look in life and he told me, no, this is gold it represents life and opportunity exact opposite and that's where we started we're like, okay, we're getting into this new this new industry that represents that drones, you know, it's so hard to you know, change the whole mindset of it and yet here we are, you know, and we were like it's only suitable to name ourselves Kolea Gold and represent life and opportunity and if I could just interpret that a little bit that Kolea is an 18 year life bird so this is a, you're in this for a long time and also they just imagine all the maintenance they must go through to order to make that flight 18 round trips of 3,000 miles and the ones who go to the Marquesas add another 2,000 miles to it so these guys are serious long range so you guys have picked as your model a really long lasting, high performing excellent, excellent figurehead as your like, you could have picked Phoenix, right? Rising out of the fire, but that's not a good one because it's a whole fire to rise out of, right? So once again, people get, there you are what do we have here? This is our website. A website, okay, so Kolea Gold, this is some of your work. You scroll down. Okay, okay, absolutely right, okay and this is the sort of thing that anybody who has need for this kind of close up aerial imagery inspection for whatever form of advertising or it's just discovery of your own, what's your own property looks like if you're an agricultural guy or even the fire department or police department could ask you for help in this regard, right? Absolutely, that's another thing about networking out here, especially in Hawaii because of our community is everybody knows all our relatives know somebody in the industry or especially in fresh response that's something that we take there to become an instructor for CPR with Pamela Foster she's somebody that definitely we want to connect with and try and see if we can get a drone with an AED on it and teaching everybody not only CPR and getting an AED to them, try to save lives that's our name and this is what our mission is. And I like what she said earlier that a lot of companies may have bought a drone thinking they can go use it but they don't really have the background and the skills you guys can come in and fix that and provide that frame of reference and that trusted environment in which to operate. So we're closing out our show here at this point in time gentlemen it's only a half hour these days we could talk for hours and I'm sure we will afterwards and this has been so cool to have you on Kanoa? Thank you. And Micah? You guys come on again sometime but this is the start of your new phase of life with the drones here on the table and your certificates in your pocket and the world is looking for you and they're going to come after you. Yes, we're ready. Thanks man, thanks for coming on. Thank you.