 Hello, I'm Michael North, welcome to another edition of Asia-Pacific Business Strategies, coming to you from beautiful downtown Honolulu. And today we have with us a really special guest, a lady who is organizing a tremendous international conference that's going to be held in Honolulu next month. The conference name is Verge Hawaii, and the lady who's joining us is Elaine Shea. She's a program director at Green Biz, and the name of the conference again is Verge Hawaii. It's being held at the Hilton here in Honolulu, June 12th to the 14th. Elaine, hello in San Francisco. Hi, Michael, how are you? I'm really great. How is, actually, you're in Oakland. How is Oakland today? That's right. It's over in East Bay. Oakland is very sunny today. It's an excellent day. It's almost like Hawaii. And I wanted to show people the Verge Hawaii logo, because it's a conference that's been held here a couple of times in the last couple of years, and maybe you can talk to us a little bit about the conference and what it's for, its purpose, and who's behind it. Sure. So I work for a company called Green Biz. And we are a global media and events company, and we talk about things that advance the opportunities at the intersection of business, technology, and sustainability. We have a number of different things that we do, and one of them is actually events. What give you that confidence again, so we can visualize it, Elaine? Those four. Oh, sure. It's about advancing opportunities at the intersection of business, technology, and sustainability. Okay. So, obviously, our name, the company name is Green Biz. And we are founded mostly around corporate sustainability, but since then we've expanded significantly with our Verge event. And so we usually, we have actually been around the world with our Verge events. They are a really special type of event that we have that actually brings together not just those in corporations, but rather also people who are really kind of accelerating through a convergence of solutions. So Verge, in particular, is a conference and expo that serves the platform for accelerating the clean economy. That's something that we're calling basically any kind of industry's economy that is greener and cleaner, more sustainable, economically prosperous, as well as equitable. So the key on Verge is that we take a systems level approach across policy, technology, and infrastructure that's required to deliver on ambitious goals across a lot of different industries. Policy, technology, and infrastructure. So does that mean that there's some government people involved in these conferences sometimes? That's right. Okay. That's right. So Verge brings together a really diverse stakeholder group and Verge kind of comes from the convergence of a lot of different industries and a lot of different roles, a lot of different technologies and solutions. So the diverse stakeholders that we bring together are people from government, including regulators, policymakers, people who manage a lot of different services, exactly governors, mayors, and then also the military, especially in Hawaii, where they are such a large stakeholder in terms of energy production and generation and... How are the military folks? Are they on it? Are they into the spirit of the green civilization and so on? Well, it's interesting because the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy and a number of other federal departments, as they shift away from maybe using terms like climate change, et cetera, it still is all about security and resilience. So you're seeing a lot of different natural disasters and a lot of things about how can we actually be independent and secure and resilient, right? And if you look at... That's kind of a new term, Elaine, that's... I just heard that term in this context maybe two or three years ago for the first time. Could you talk a little bit about what you mean by resilience in this context? So resilience in the context of accelerating the clean economy in this case is talking about, you know, if you look at microgrids. Have you heard of microgrids before? Yes. OK, so if you look at microgrids as a solution where you have... There are lots of different kinds of microgrids. Many North America are actually grid connected. But if you look at the way that the distributed grid works, especially in Hawaii, where a lot of it is centralized, people don't necessarily want to be beholden to the grid going down, right? And so there's the military in particular, especially over the years in North America, has invested a lot in microgrids for their army bases or their navy bases or basically just for areas of the country where they need to make sure that they're going to have reliable, secure energy. And what we're starting to see also is a lot of impacts as you see in Hawaii right now with the Big Island, with the Kauai flooding, the lava flows, you know, what's going on right now and also Puerto Rico and Texas and Florida, the Hurricanes. There's a lot in natural disasters that are occurring. You know, whether or not you believe that it is because of man made conditions, certainly clean energy is going to help in terms of reducing the amount of global warming that's occurring. And so I think the point is that, you know, by having situations where you're using cleaner sources, non fossil fuel based sources for your energy, you're promoting public transport, you're having more and more renewable fuels, you're having more efficient buildings, you're having a lot of reduction of greenhouse gases. That's also a strategy. And you're using a sort of a network distribution model rather than sort of a mainframe distribution model. It's more of a distributed sort of off on the edge model. So you can have a lot of microgrids that they can be autonomous or they can be linked to each other. They can be linked to the main grid. And it does create a more resilient supply of electricity if you're not relying just on one electric power plant sitting in the middle of belching steam and coal and so on. Right. So if you look at nature very similarly, nature operates in a way that is more diverse. So they're going to be more diverse sources, right? That's how an ecosystem functions. Right. And you're also looking at more distributed solutions. So if you look at the decarbonization, the digitization, the distributed solutions that we're seeing across energy, transportation, a lot of other kinds of ways of doing things, you're creating completely new models that actually are emulating what nature has already proven to us in terms of resilience and an ability to sort of function and make sure that everything is thriving and that you're not caught in a tricky situation and not being able to actually function after that. I think it's fair to say that Green Biz has been around more than a decade. I remember first subscribing to your newsletter more than a decade ago, and I've followed it ever since. We had your company name up a few minutes ago, Green Biz. If people are interested, you can go to greenbiz.com and you can see a really fascinating global, national, regional, across technologies, across applications. A couple of weeks ago, you were even talking about artificial intelligence and its role in creating new flexible systems. So I commend to everybody to visit Green Biz. Thanks, Michael. So just to go back to your original question, which is what are the diverse stakeholders that we're engaging in order to actually create these convergence solutions? There's government, there's military, there's leading companies, there's entrepreneurs, utilities, solutions providers. NGOs? It's basically any major stake, yes, in NGOs for sure, academic institutions, et cetera. I think the main thing is really just that you need everybody at the table in order to actually, or all the major stakeholders and influencers in order to actually understand holistic perspectives necessary for systemic solutions. I want to show the video from last year's Verge, which is leading into this conference. People can get a little flavor of some of the participants. And can we bring up the Verge 2017 video, please? I am so proud to be governor of the state of Hawaii, where our entire community is committed to a clean energy future. Hawaii's goal is to create a future that's both sustainable and good economically as well as socially. It really is about being the best Hawaii that we can be. I've got kids, and I can tell you the number one thing that is on their minds is, are we going to have a sustainable world? They're thinking about their future, and they want to make sure that all of us who are running the economy today think about that future as well. We're very excited to have Verge return to Hawaii. Last year was very impressive, and year two is going to be all about turning ideas into action as Hawaii pushes forward in its 100% clean energy goals. Verge is really a unique conference where we can get participants in the full spectrum of the energy sector to meet here in Hawaii to talk about clean energy future. Verge is really going to help Hawaii bring many, many stakeholders together. And it's not just the utility company or the independent power providers, but it's the technology providers too. Getting to 100% clean energy for the state of Hawaii is all about creating jobs, attracting investments, and bringing the kind of innovation that we want to see in the state. Whether you're here in Hawaii from the mainland or other regions around the world, we invite you to join us at Verge Hawaii. I think you can see from that video that what we're talking about is really a wide variety of stakeholders. And Elaine, you were talking earlier about the silos and breaking down the vertical silos. Can you comment a little bit more about that from a structural standpoint, how we manage this knowledge and produce some useful new insights? So I think the problem sometimes is, say, for example, Hawaii with Governor Ege creating the statute or signing the law for mandating 100% renewable electricity by 2045, everyone who worked in electricity and grids and utilities and all those major decision makers and influencers in the electricity space were on it, right? They were like, how do we need to plan this? What do we need to invest in? What are the things that we need to do to change? What does that data look like? And they were working very often, what I would say back at least in early 2016, myopically, where they were kind of only talking to themselves and not necessarily connecting the dots to a number of other aspects that would influence the ability to get there. The solar people talking to the solar people and the agriculture people talking to the agri- and the transportation people talking to the transportation people, which of course is natural, but they weren't so much talking to each other. Exactly, and I think the issue is more that it's whenever you are faced with a very specific challenge, you want to solve it on your own with the people who you know, and you don't necessarily connect the dots in terms of understanding unintended consequences or integrated approaches that are different than how you typically operate. And so, you know, back then when the statute was done, it was really for electricity. And so the transportation fuels people and a number of other stakeholders in that world were not necessarily part of that conversation and they should have been, right? And so since then that's changed obviously with the island commitments, et cetera, but I think the main thing was really more that the state energy office had the foresight to say, we need to do this differently. We need to get people to really connect the dots and see the interconnections between all these different sectors and industries and different kinds of stakeholders at all levels, including communities. And so they brought us in to sort of have that more holistic discussion to explore more integrated solutions. Well, great. We're going to take a brief break here, Elaine, and we'll be right back in a minute or so with Elaine Schiff from Verge, Hawaii. Crazy world, so far up in the confusion, nothing is making sense for me. Not to be solution, how to make a part of it. Good afternoon. My name is Howard Wigg. I am the proud host of Code Green, a program on Think Tech Hawaii. We show at three o'clock in the afternoon every other Monday. My guests are specialists, both from here and the mainland on energy efficiency, which means you do more for less electricity and you're generally safer and more comfortable while you're keeping dollars in your pocket. We're back with Elaine Jie from Verge, Hawaii. And I would like you to just comment a little bit more on the idea that we tend to, professionally, we tend to think vertically within our profession and really effective long-term solutions are also the product of effective lateral thinking, combining slices of all those verticals and speak a little bit more about that. Yeah, I mean, really you're seeing issues around models, right? So oftentimes you have policies or business models or market models that are rooted in some very specific parties getting more advantage than others, right? And so as we change in terms of technology changes and also new stakeholders and things that are bridging gaps like data, we're starting to realize models are aligned where no one really, it doesn't have to be a zero sum game, right? How can you create models that are economically beneficial for all partners? And so you look at things very laterally, like you say. You have to understand, you know, I know that the State Energy Office is dealing with future, an evaluation of future models for utility ownership and regulation in Hawaii. You know, they're looking at what that data is looking at, but they also are engaging lots of different stakeholders in order to do that. The Hawaii State Energy Office is a close partner of ours as well as Hawaii Natural Energy Institute, Elemental Accelerator, Hawaiian Electric Company, Ulupono Initiative, Carbon My House, like all Blue Planet Foundation, a lot of these organizations that actually have to look at things very laterally, right? Are they engaging in lots of different groups? How about finance? Yes, finance is a huge deal. Okay. Yes, absolutely. It's about what is gonna be economically beneficial to all parties. I mean, that is the, I think people are obviously motivated by money. And in Hawaii, a lot of people, especially in, you know, engaging in our advisory board for, for Hawaii, a lot of the major stakeholders in Hawaii have indicated, well, where's that money gonna come from to invest in, you know, the clean energy transition or the clean ground transportation transition and all that. So there are a lot of new- And very often green things, green things tend to be capital intensive at the beginning. So you have to invest in some infrastructure, for example, in solar, before you can generate the electricity. So creating methods for financing is a challenge. If you're looking at centralized ways of building out your infrastructure, that may be true in terms of CAPEX. But if you're looking at more distributed systems, there are really synergistic financial opportunities out there that don't necessarily have to make it capital intensive. And, you know, there's a lot of low-hanging fruit now, especially with the economics of many different clean energy technologies. So I would say don't operate under the perception of how things were even a year ago. Things have changed. And what we're servicing at Virtuae is what is actually additive and new and fresh and actually solvable because there are solutions out there already. That's very true. Let's have a quick look at this year's program. We have a short video that introduces Burj, Hawaii, 2018, which again is at the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Honolulu, June 12th to the 14th, 2018, just a few weeks from now. And it's very easy to sign up on the internet and very reasonable costs to go and organizations and so on. And we do even have a discount for viewers of Think Tech. But let's have a look at this short video to introduce some of the themes that will be active in this year's conference. Hawaii's mandate of 100% renewables has created enormous opportunities for Hawaii for our economy, our environment, and our communities. Burj has been really instrumental in keeping the conversation. And all that includes the momentum around Hawaii's clean energy transformation. We now have some of the best innovators in the world coming to Hawaii to help uplift our community and create an inclusive and equitable clean energy economy. Burj is where a bunch of different stakeholders come together and kind of think at a systems level about how we integrate the commitments that have been made at the state and at the county. And everybody can come together under one big tent and figure out how do these systems integrate and get some holistic solutions. The thing that's important about Burj is that it brings together people from many different sectors and industries. And energy, water, agriculture, transportation, these touch every single business and every single person in all of this. State of Hawaii and the Asian Pacific. And getting to 100% renewables is gonna take many, many partners and we're closing deals faster than ever before. With the approval of our Power Supply Improvement Plan in 2017, it created a pathway for the next five years. Burj is gonna be a great opportunity to talk about the county commitments to 20, 35, 100% renewable fleet. 20, 45, the entire ground transportation system in Hawaii should be renewable. As someone involved in bringing Burj to Hawaii, I'm pleased that the Burj-Hawaii annual event has become a focal point for these vital discussions. If you are an energy stakeholder anywhere in the world, and particularly for islanded communities, I hope you will join me in Honolulu for Burj Hawaii 2018. So Elaine, one of the people that I noticed in that video is Ramsey Tom, who represents for a lot of people the best of traditional Hawaiian culture. And that, of course, Hawaii is different from any other place in the world because we have this very alive, active, organic culture. And it informs a lot of the ways that we live and do business here in Hawaii. Can you comment a little bit about that as part of Burj? Yeah, absolutely. I think in terms of the promo that you just watched, I wanna just do a quick shout-out before I answer your question that we're gonna have more than 800 attendees, more than 150 speakers. And if you vote in all the partners I mentioned previously, we couldn't do it without their support. And so, I mean, the key here is that we needed to make sure that whatever we brought to Hawaii with Burj as we have done in 2016 and 2017, that we make it all about Hawaii in terms of lessons learned and sharing out and all those things. And one of those things is, how can we be both helpful and additive? And so, we wanna make sure that in these solutions that we're seeking to meet our mandates or our commitments or our goals, we wanna engage everyone. And so, to your question about Ramsey, he really and other cultural stakeholders within Hawaii as well as some elders, they've really taught us to engage everyone, to really be collaborative and inclusive and create a culturally grounded way of engaging people. So, how can we be more relational instead of transactional? Really typically, the Western culture is to be very like, I know this, you pay me for that. And in Hawaii, it's extremely wonderful in the way that things are very mutual. How can we make sure that- Well, we call that here, we call that the spirit of aloha, right? And that's shorthand for the holistic way of seeing things. Exactly, and that is the nature of our program too. How can we show people that all the interesting expertise that they all bring when you convert, when you create this convergent platform, everyone can stand on the shoulders of these giants that we're gathering, and we can build for the next generation, right? And so- So, in a way, could you say that some ideas from Hawaii are percolating their way through green biz and into the other projects that you do around the country and around the world? So, the spirit of aloha is having a kind of a nurturing effect on the clean energy movement. Absolutely, absolutely. I think it makes people receptive to opening themselves up and creating solutions together. So, give us a couple of highlights of speakers who will be here, June 12th to the 14th. Well, in addition to all the major stakeholders in Hawaii that are shaping the clean electricity and clean ground transportation movement, we are also bringing together people from around the country and around the world. So, the major energy decision makers and policy makers from California, the California Energy Commission or David Hockfield and PG&E and Sempra and the California Public Utilities Commission and San Diego and microgrid operators. And then we also have Sanjay Bose, who's VP of Engineering at Con Edison in New York, who actually helped in the restoration of Hurricane Sandy and is also part of the Puerto Rico recovery efforts. We also have a few people from Alaska, which also is an island and they have 350 microgrids. In fact, we have people from Oregon and also sustainable tourism, which actually has a sustainable tourism summit as part of Verge Hawaii as well. And also, you know, all the NGOs that you're talking about, NRDC, DOE, NREL, Rocky Mountain Institute, People from Australia, and yeah. Yeah, and exactly, so we have the head of... I want to show everyone how to get involved. We have a link here for people to follow and there's a discount code, which you can take down off of this video, VH18 ThinkTech. And if you use that discount code, then you can get at least a 10% discount on tickets to Verge Hawaii. So I thank you so much, Elaine, for taking time today to join us from Oakland and please send our aloha to all of your great people there in your amazing crew and to all of the people around the world that you deal with. And we thank you and look forward to seeing you on June 12th in Honolulu here at the Hilton, Hawaii, at Hilton, Hawaii and Bill. Mahalo, Mahalo. Mahalo. Thank you so much, Michael. Aloha.