 I'm Joshua Cooper and welcome to Cooper Union. What's happening with human rights around our world on Think Tech Live, broadcasting from our downtown studio in Honolulu, Hawaii in Moana, New York, Kaya. Today we're looking at Hawaii Green Growth, Connecting Humanity, achieving the Aloha Plus Challenge in the 2030 Agenda in our islands. I'm very fortunate to be joined by Chris and Bert. Thank you both for joining us today. Oh, thanks for having me. Thanks so much. I really appreciate it to be here. The Hawaii Green Growth Local 2030 Hub Annual Partnership Gathering really was important to advance action on the Hawaii Plus Challenge priorities and the island-led solutions that deliver against the UN Sustainable Development Goals. And what was so exciting is it brought together all segments of society to decide what we can do together. Chris, really quick, why is HGG Local 2030 of such an important institution in our islands and why did you and your constituents join? Awesome. Well, thank you very much for having me on the show. So HGG is an amazing organization that really brings together so many different elements of our islands and organizations that work throughout our islands on so many different topics, human rights, education, covering entirely the whole gamut of all of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals from the UN. So being able to have all of these people in one space working together really allows us to start tackling some of the big problems that all of our institutions alone are working towards. But if we have that concerted effort towards it, makes just such a huge difference and we can actually tackle things that are much larger than we alone can work with and really shapes the direction that we're actually going in. And so at Bishop Museum, we decided that we wanted to be a key partner within HGG very early on when we learn about this as we were looking at benchmarking our institution, understanding where we were and where we're going. And a lot of this really aligns with what HGG is doing. And as the State Museum of Natural History and Culture, we really want to be a key part of this entire endeavour and actually show to our guests, our board members and everything and everyone, we are part of a much bigger picture. And so the work that we do and how we can showcase it and engage with the public in certain ways, we really can showcase what the islands are doing, what HGG is doing and really show that large scale picture and be part of it. So it's been an amazing partnership so far and we look forward to continuing that over the coming months. Mahalo, Chris, Bert? Well, thanks Joshua for having me on the programme and it's great to see you and Chris here. The Hawaii Green Growth, as Chris said so eloquently, has been a champion for the United Nations sustainable development goals. And this is a really important effort that is embraced by the international community. And for us locally to be a part of that movement is quite, I think, significant. And the folks over at Hawaii Green Growth have been kind of at the apex of building awareness for the SDGs here in Hawaii. And for the work that I do at least, I'm helping with the state of Hawaii's broad band and digital equity efforts. And see it as sort of part of a foundational platform for a lot of the topics that the SDGs rely on. So connectivity and having a digital literate workforce is really kind of critical to moving a lot of the agenda items. So there's a great synergy, at least for my perspective on the work that I do and the work that HGG and Celeste Connors does. So being a part of this annual partnership convening was a great opportunity to kind of meet some of the other folks, get ideas as to what they're doing and feel as a community that we're actually able to move the agenda forward. So to me, it was a great event. And I like to see how some of the tactical measures are taken as we move forward through the rest of 2022 and onward into 2023 and beyond. So it's really good to keep in touch with everybody as we move these initiatives forward. So true, Bert, really, the local 2030 have gathering on the ground, United partners from across government, business and civil society to really accelerating scale solutions to sustainable challenges. There were amazing parts of the HGG annual partnership with keynote addresses and panels. What was a highlight of the HGG annual partnership meeting that you'd like to share with the wider audience? We know we had Lieutenant Governor Josh Green. We had some amazing youth on panels. We had East West Center partnership. What were some highlights that you think really stood up? Chris? So you mentioned, for me, the most important part and sort of the most inspiring, I believe, of the whole meeting was the youth leaders. So with the panel of multiple youth leaders from crossway alongside Lieutenant Governor Green with, I think, the youngest was 14 years old and was just an incredible, the way he spoke, the way he talked about the challenges that are being seen across our islands and just this dedication of these leaders to making change and also being able to vocalize like what they're seeing is happening now, what they want to see in the future. And genuinely providing one of the most hopeful outlooks to the future that I've seen, talked about with many of the things that we're experiencing with sort of global injustices, climate change. All of these can get quite daunting and sort of very talked about in very negative and sort of despondent ways. And these youth leaders only framed it in hopeful ways. They had this viewed vision of the future, of passing things down to their future generations. At just at like 14, 17 years old, knowing exactly that they want to hand down something better to their future children and just hearing what they want to see and how they want to work alongside the older generation of us and sort of take on that baton going forwards and what they want to see and how they want to then lead with that afterwards was truly one of the most awe inspiring panels I think I've ever seen. I've seen quite a few of these panels now, but these kids, I mean, they are our future in every way possible. And I think that it feels like the future will be in good hands with them and it's just doing the work to make sure to lay the groundwork for them. And I mean, that was by far for me just the best part of the entire experience. I agree. I remember another student on that panel was the ripe age of 17 and her presentation combining music to connect with the climate justice movement. The only person I felt sorry for on that panel was the superintendent who had to follow her because her presentation was so amazing, was so deep into the Kanaka Mali culture to really look at the methodology that was rooted in our host culture that when she then handed off and it's, oh, who's next, it's superintendent. And he really didn't have much to say except for, well, you can see we have great students and that is what we're supposed to be producing. And that was important, but I agree. I think that was one of the strongest panels as well as Josh Green on that one as well. Bert, how about you? What were some of your highlights? Because we know we had a full morning as well. Well, I will second what Chris said that the youth panel was probably, for me, the most inspiring because when they were asked questions about the whole SDGs, the climate situation, what their vision for the future of Hawaii would be, their answers I thought were really well crafted, well thought out. And like Chris said, I mean, the ages that were represented were 14 to 17. And they were not only well thought out, but it was framed in, like you said, Joshua, I mean, a lot of the cultural connections and the idea of Aloha Aina and the sense of place was really strong. And I think the overarching message, and I think that's why Hawaii, I think plays a really key role in this, is that we by nature look at our environment from an island perspective. And we are obviously in the middle of the Pacific. And so we do live in an environment where it's not only a great environment, but it's very precious in its limit in terms of we only have a limited amount of land, we only have a limited amount of resources. So we need to best manage that into the future. And the message to me is it resounds and should resound across the entire globe. And that's kind of, I think the hope that is presented by how we approach the SDGs. The thing that I found inspiring, and I think this is part of the way the whole partner event went, there were leaders there. And I was quite impressed by many of those leaders as they spoke and expressed their commitment to this movement. The mayors were all great. I love hearing them all in the same room. And I think it was a demonstration of the connection between generations. And in a lot of native and indigenous cultures, they look at seven generations. And the seven generations are the connecting, the connective tissue from each generation to the next. And that we have this obligation to make sure that we are thinking of the takey and their following generations after them. So the demonstration of this event had those generations represented. And it wasn't just the youth saying what they said, but it was the leadership recognizing that, we have an opportunity to lay the foundation for the youth to come in and continue to the work as part of that commitment to seven generations. So I think it was a really well crafted event that got the message across, got the right people in the room. And I'm excited to see what happens after this. And again, that's just the panels and the speeches. And Josh, I think you probably get into some of the takeaways from the actual breakout sessions. And to me, that was a good opportunity to really get down to what are some of the things that we actually have to start doing. Yeah, and really you bringing up about the mayors, that was quite a panel. I mean, there was even intergenerational on the mayor's panel with the fund banter back and forth between Kauai and Maui as well as Hawaii Island. But I think that's one of the real strengths of Hawaii Green Growth and the Loha Plus challenges. You then talked about them having their own dashboard at each county level. And then a co-op petition, I believe they called it where they would then work together to see how well they could all achieve the Loha Plus challenge and the 17 global goals. So those were actually really exciting conversations and examples of how to scale up solutions they could find on each other's islands and then share with one another. So that was strong. And definitely getting to what you just shared, a rare new feature, the 17 rooms initiated an experimental method to convene people to spur collaborative actions for the SDGs. And these 17 rooms aim to identify practical next steps within each SDG and also stimulate productive connections across all the goals. So I think that came up a lot. And this is really based on Brookings Institution and the Hawaii Green Growth Local 2030 Hub with the 17 rooms process really offers an efficient way of convening natural and unconventional allies. And then gathering promotes the familiarity to enable collaboration among community through new ideas and pathways to action. And you really got me thinking too, we did have representatives from the White House there and we did have representatives from Hawaiian Electric. It was that really coming together as you illustrated that then we began to think about what we can do new and remind ourselves why we initially joined Hawaii Green Growth. For one of our final questions, looking at the HCG annual partnership, which one did you participate in of the 17 rooms and what were some ideas and initiatives to begin with within our islands? Chris? Awesome, so yeah, so I participated in SDG4, which is for quality education. So I worked with just this incredible group, including the superintendents who had the very tough job of following an amazing youth leader. And so we had representatives from informal education, and various different areas across our islands, from nonprofits, so you got this museum, and Stable Crosslands Hawaii, to actually like DIV representatives. So we had these fantastic conversations of most of what we start was trying to build on like what is our biggest issues right now? What do we need to tackle? What do we see as educators as where our resources lacking? And so many of our discussions, I mean, it was incredible to just see this males from all these different ideas come together. And we realized that it's actual accessibility is some of the biggest things for many of these things. When you're talking about education for sustainable development or ESD, being able to have the correct partnerships, resources and educational material online to be able to engage with these as an educator is one of the key areas. So we started exploring ideas around a virtual learning environment or digital resources that educators, schools across Hawaii can have access to resources focusing on various SDG based areas of education. And so that's a huge monumental task in itself. So it's actually then breaking it down with what steps do we need to take to get to those goals? And I think that's obviously one of the key things with Hawaii Green Growth is we know our goals need to be done by 2030. What steps do we need to take on that journey to get there? So for our room, it was looking at being able to actually build this network. So we have our HG partners network but actually providing like a database almost of each one of those partners and where they're located. So who are your local HGG partners and what do they actually research and what do they focus on within the yellow bus challenge and being able to provide somewhere online this hotspot map of all of these partners, the local schools and educational facilities can actually access and go, these are the people I can talk to. These are the people who can support us and we can work with to give a rich educational experience to our people. And then with this, as you said earlier the council based challenge exists. And so that's an amazing, that's that amazing platform that already kind of exists that we can build on and expand alongside HGG. And we can provide those materials on there. And so a lot of the goals that we came up was getting challenges for the HG partners to engage with that area, with that challenge and sort of do a voluntary organization review. So understanding what your organization is doing with regards to how it operates in every way with its energy. So if you educate yourself, you can educate others. And that's the key part of it. And then sort of making sure that this platform is engaged with multiple levels from HG partners to educators. And so that as was focused all around that platform. So it's a really cool thing to do. Those are really good points and even being innovative, right? There has been a voluntary local review that HGG spearheaded at University of Hawaii. We did a voluntary university review, but then pointing out that every organization no matter who you are, can do a VOR and actually look at how you're doing yourself and how you could improve and look at those aspects. And that is exciting to hear about all the people participating under SDG4. And Bert moving to you, how about yours? So I had SDG9 and nine was industry, innovation and infrastructure. And the participants in that room, which actually wasn't a room, it was a table, included folks from HGG as well as folks from the city and county, which were a part of the office of climate change, resilience and sustainability. And so they were all basically very kind of in tune with what it is that the SDGs were about and what we as a gathering for this particular SDG9 was there to do. So one of the things that we spend a fair amount of time thinking about is, what is it that we can do from a tactical standpoint to help move some of the areas like infrastructure innovation and industry? Now that's a pretty broad scope of things. And one of the things that I tried to help facilitate was the idea that this SDG is really all about our economy and how we can move the agenda in Hawaii consistent with the goals of the SDGs and in particular what is it that we can do for this room and make some suggestions. So one of the things that maybe from a timely standpoint it was really quite timely was the fact that the federal government just announced the passing of a major bill called the Inflation Reduction Act. So anybody who's kind of wonky into federal legislation and some of the federal programs and money that will be flowing to the states will be following stuff like this. And it's shortened and you can refer to it as the IRA but that's the Inflation Reduction Act. And it has a lot to do with climate kinds of programs. And so our recommendation to the larger group was that and this is where it's nice to be a facilitator because then you can assign jobs to everybody else. And so the assigned job for HDG was to help people understand what the policy framework was for the IRA. What is the policy framework? And help people understand what it is that it really helps to spell out and what are some of the timing, the tactical, what is the flow of money that will ultimately end up coming to Hawaii? Because we're talking billions of dollars. So figure that out, that's a role that HDG can play. For the Office of Climate Change and Resilience and Sustainability, what we suggested for them to consider is to look at what kinds of data should be gathered in order to best measure the objectives that not only for this SDG, but how can we measure some of the things coming out of the IRA? And if IRA is gonna provide money to fund some projects, how do we start to measure what those objectives are? And so once we start measuring, then we can determine how we are performing against any of those measurements. And then the third thing that we came up with was the fact that I think, and this is another assignment for the Office of Climate Change, is to look at continuing to engage the community. Because I think a lot of innovation really comes from engaging the community. Just the fact that you get feedback from a lot of stakeholders, a lot of times good ideas will result from that. I can sort of speak from experience having convened the broadband hui for the last 132 weeks ever since the pandemic. There's a lot of great ideas, great people, great initiatives that get born out of that kind of convening. Now I'm not telling the city and county to convene something every week. I'm not gluttony for punishment. They may not be as masochistic as I am, but the whole idea is engage the community, drive civic engagement, come up with ideas, and let's try them. Let's put some of these great ideas into play and then learn from them and pivot if necessary, but it's better to start putting some things in play as opposed to sort of, you know, analyze until you, you know, I guess what, analysis paralysis. You don't want to do that. You just want to just tell them, let's just do it. That's my, anyway, that was the three recommendations that we came up with during our little round table for SDG nine. That's excellent. And under SDG 16, we came up with four as well. We had Aina Mamona was our overall theme of the abundance of Aloha and all that's possible. And our first one was participation, so looking at education with activities starting in November after the election to teach people how to participate and then action throughout the entire calendar starting in January, of course, when the legislature kicks off. Then we also had something called dirty politics and that was place-based public policy where we invite elected officials to come out and see the situation firsthand. And then the last one was Moana Nuiakea, which was looking at Pacific Island, knowledge sharing with Fokulea going in the next five years throughout all of the greater Oceania. And then our last one was understanding to focus on really looking at bringing the Paris Agreement in which we've looked at the sustainable development goals, which we're talking about today, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People to then focus on peace, justice and strong institutions. And then that allowed us even the idea of maybe a human rights and resilience commission. But I really have enjoyed talking with you and I also appreciate all the work that you do outside of these 2030 Island hub meetings because Chris, I just think your Kapai Mahu project that you recently did this summer shows how you connect all the global goals and how it's not something we do once a year, but every day in our activities. And maybe you could share a little bit about that and Bird as well. I could only, you called it a masochistic, but I think it's heroic to think how we've been trying to meet each other and none of us had seen each other live, but thanks to the efforts that you're looking at with broadband, we know that digital democracy and digital connection is just as important. So Chris, maybe closing minute, you could share about Kapai Mahu and other exciting initiatives at the museum and Bird as well about how we're trying to stay connected even when we can. Of course, I can talk very briefly about Kapai Mahu. So I wasn't directly involved in the project, but this is the exhibit that we hosted on our museum that just closed last weekend so we're in the middle of a de-install on that. It's an amazing exploration of gender fluidity, healing, and it just, it's a really grounded exhibit that really explored all these different elements of culture within Hawaii. And so we are working on a number of initiatives. We recently installed decent fast chargers, helping with electrification in Hawaii that features local artwork on them to make them more than just something that's utilitarian, but making it sort of a sustainable gallery as well. So I'll hand it over now, sorry. Mahalo, Bert. Oh, real quick, I'll just keep it short. If people wanna learn about the digital equity declaration, just go to broadbandhui.org and that's what we've been working on for like the last 133 weeks. Perfect. All those are absolutely excellent examples of how partners who gather together annually at the Hawaii Green Growth Annual Partnership Meeting are taking action on a daily basis to make sure that the sustainable development goals, ending poverty, zero hunger, good health and wellbeing, quality education, gender, equity, clean water and sanitation, renewable energy, as well as decent work economic growth, infrastructure and innovation as Bert shared, 10 looking at reducing inequalities, 11 sort of cities and looking at 12 that responsible consumption and production, 13, 14, 15, climate action, life below water, life on land, 16, peace justice and final one, 17, which is partnership, which is why we're all gathering together, are all essential to bring Hawaii going forward and it's great to see our subnational partnership with the mayors and the governor's offices working together to keep a consistent voice and making sure that the will of the people for a greater and a more positive Pacific is heard. So Mahalo and thank you both for appearing today. Thank you very much for having me. Mahalo, thanks for having me. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.