 It's the noon hour on Thursday folks. Ted Rawson here with our show where the drone leads at the Think Tech Studio is overlooking currently Ghana Bay on the winter side of Oahu. And joining us on this show where we talk about drones, drone technology and drone utility are three incredible people that everybody won't see them again on this show because they're from so far away. Anyway we have, first of all, Kayla Ishida from actually from Kauai but you're temporarily at the Coast Guard Academy in Groton, Connecticut. So here for the summer a little bit and we have Skye Goddard who is from a lot of places right now you could say Minnesota is your legal place of where you're from but it could be other places in a lot of the world. You've been for a very young person you've had a lot of experiences all over the world thanks for coming on the show. So we have Greg Nakano. Greg is a mystery man on this show. He comes on from time to time and then he disappears and we see him again but Greg's always three steps ahead of everybody else and so I really appreciate Greg, your insight, vision and how you think about putting things together in these really complicated circumstances that we seem to be facing these days. Anyway drones, how does drones fit into this whole discussion? It kind of started with Greg and I maybe five or six years ago talking about how drones could influence the way we see disaster operations or sea level rise or other issues that need to be mitigated by providing a different point of view and by perhaps providing some kind of delivery service or something like that. If we can get this functionality out into the hands of people who need it perhaps we can increase the way we respond and improve the way we respond and you've got some great ideas about how to put that together with the service academies and with Pacific Command. We go on to a very high level of thinking here and as a result we have Kayla and Sky with us here today. So you've just been to the Marshall Islands for a really unusual trip and you've been to the Marshall Islands in a lot of places I think in the past. Kayla tell us about what you just did and what you came home from or came home with in terms of perspectives and such about how we might go forward and how this kind of technology not just air drones but also surface drones and submarine drones might play into that picture of informing the future. Alright thank you for having me on the show it's great to be here so I was in the Marshall Islands for two and a half weeks and there I was helping with the marine science camp so Cara Miller was on the show I think about two weeks ago or three weeks ago and she talked about the marine science program that we were starting there so it was a two-week program where we're working with students and teaching them about different scientific methods how to collect data and about their ecosystem around them. School kids in the Marshall Islands and this program was provided by what organization this training camp? The program is a larger program so we took about 30 to 40 students from the Spartan summer camp with which Jelton and Jing started and that's really his child that he started to push together. We've had him on the show too by the way. A lot of key members who have been here before so again we just took about 30 to 40 students and worked with them just to get them exposed to their marine environment which was really surprising some of them haven't been snorkeling ever before they haven't really looked at the coral they haven't looked at a lot of the species so it was really a cool experience to be a part of to get them to be exposed to those things and just the smiles that lit up on their face once they were able to get out there and go what is that what is that and just get incorporated and what's been around them their whole lives. Cool and so now we can get them in influence and influence about taking a step into the future and adding more functionality more technology getting the air component getting subsurface component getting software that analyzes all this stuff and then maybe coming up with the mathematical algorithms such that do the software itself so this is a great starting point for getting these kids excited. I hope there's a continuity here beyond that we can take them after their exciting summer and have them pick up something in the school program that takes them forward. Yes it's something that we worked with during the summer so University of Hoy Department of Engineering donated about 20 luxury robotic cars so they had a breadboard electronic system on board and we started working with the students there and really trying to get them to start thinking about engineering think about problem solving electrical components so this is a step which we can take to maybe work on the drones later on because they have such great creativity it's really about giving them the technology and the resources so it's something that we worked on with the camp and although it was only during the summer we're now trying to work on getting them to meet maybe on Saturdays or once a week to come to the school gym and work on it for an hour or two or however long they'd be interested. Cool then you can get their siblings enthused and get their parents enthused and so this sort of has a way of propagating. I wish this had been 50 years ago and we had that program at Kailua school I would have been maybe headed in a different direction. So Skye you have some similar experiences in a completely different course track but tell us about your coursework and where you're headed and how you see these evolving capabilities fitting into the need statements that are kind of hard to define out there. Yeah so I'm an environmental sociology student. Environmental. Environmental sociology. Sociology. I'm looking at the relationships between the earth and societies and I was out there for one several reasons but one of them was to study for my thesis do my research I'm doing my thesis on connections to home the islands and how culture and tradition are being changed in the face of climate change. So I spent two months out there beginning with meetings with everyone from Iroj and Mike Iroj and Senator Mike Kibua to Dr. Cho Cho Thane at the hospital met with several people from Kaja the joint utilities resources and then I was also able to meet with the World Bank and JICA and learn about their programs on the island and then from there I also was teaching summer school classes and then was also a camp counselor for the Was this whole part of your college career at Whitman or at a stage earlier than that? How did you get involved in this? So yeah I just talked to Greg kind of jumped in. So now it all comes back to Greg right? Yeah yeah I've been interested I was born in Okinawa Japan so I've always been interested in the Pacific Islands and also their connections with the US military and then I was really interested in how sea level impacts these islands. I started my environmental career in Bangladesh looking at some of how the effects of sea level rise there and the effects of climate change there. So yeah my work has always been around sea level rise, climate migration and how that is affecting culture and indigenous peoples. It is so fantastic that you guys are getting involved in having the opportunity to get involved and then see maybe a new way that the future ought to be looked at from what we might have looked at in the past I mean we kind of trashed the place right so now you guys have to untrash it and that's what's left to you. Did the two of you have a chance to converse or have any common themes that came out of your experiences this summer? Yeah I think just our interactions with people like when we were just kind of talking when we came back or even when we were there what we noticed I think a lot of some- You were there at the same time right? Yeah I was only there for two and a half weeks but Sky was there for much longer but even when I came she kind of started briefing me on what was going on and then later I'm going wow I'm noticing a lot of yeah a lot of similar experiences that Sky went through so. Under what program protocol did you get Sky involved? Greg we'll turn to you for a moment as the orchestra leader here putting all these pieces together. Well I think a lot of this comes out of the University of Hawaii Pacific Command MOU which is trying to look at how we operationalize or look at the benefits of collaborating between the University and Pacific Command and then the specific program that we're trying to use as a mechanism to operationalize that is something called Pacific Allies and the whole idea is how do we help the next generation prepare for the kind of climate change challenges that we're going to leave behind for them and new technology like drones are things that didn't exist cell phones didn't exist when we were going to college you know didn't have email address certainly when I was going to call I can guarantee you they did not exist right so we have these new tools we have new problems but we also have new ideas fresh blood new eyes to look on problems and what we're trying to do is figure out how do we accelerate the transition of kind of that power that vision ability to make decisions that are going to affect them in 2040 2050 2060 when we'll either be gone or in diapers and they'll be leading the charge you know there's a big square building not far from here where people are thinking about those same kind of problem sets here for Hawaii so one thought that comes to mind and this was accelerated in my mind yesterday by a meeting with Jackie Hoover who is the Economic Development Committee chair on a big island how do we take what we're what you're seeing what you're experiencing and what you're thinking about as as different ways we ought to do work or see things how do we apply that right here in our on that on this island or on the big island where we have a fairly significant devastation going on with regard to the volcano and the effect it's having primary effects secondary effects tertiary effects which are going to have a lasting effect on us so is there a way that we could take what you're learning and what perhaps we can pull out of the Asia Pacific Center for security studies and is there some themology that would be useful for us to bring forward and at least take down the big building down here I don't ask you to generate the answer here because that's more than we can expect but I think it's something we ought to think about because certainly the issues that we're facing are an accelerated version of what we're going to see in the other parts of the Pacific but they're right here we hadn't planned for this so what's your thoughts on that Greg in terms of how we make that keep it all moving here in Hawaii I think you laid it out when you said you know like concentric circles of initial secondary tertiary so I remember when you went down to Philippines for Typhoon Haiyan I think it was. Yolanda. Yolanda and when you went you were talking about how interested the kids were in the drones and then how they got involved in the technology and then just by showing up just by being present on the ground you were able to help move forward civil military collaboration in a way that hadn't been possible one three five years before. I think our whole hope and I think you know they can talk a little more about this but I think just by showing up being present and engaging with the Marshallese kids and talking about ideas or giving them hope about things that they may not have any hope or even understanding of all of a sudden now those benefits are going to only increase as the kids get older so how does that impact Hawaii well Marshall Islands and Hawaii I think they share a very similar culture at least historically and if you look at places like Hilo where the lava is impacting and there's a significant Micronesian Marshallese population down there so the more we're able to help students who are in the Marshall Islands who are currently looking at possible destruction of their homeland within the next 20 to 30 years there then when they do come to Hawaii they'll be able to be leaders in helping solve problems here that are just beginning to show themselves to the local people here in Hawaii because they've been dealing with it for their entire lives. So a student of formatted leadership program dealing with these complex issues that we as adults tend to categorize and stick in a hole somewhere and then paste over and the kids can't do that they're going to let it get exposed and set it out there. So we're talking about a Pacific Congress of some kind that you're not thinking of Greg that is I'm just helping you go forward here but some kind of a Pacific educational connection of some kind and that sort of sounds like Primo doesn't it a little bit so maybe an educational component to Primo. Primo if you're not familiar is coming up this month I believe and it'll down at the either the Blaisville or the convention center and I think we should talk to Carl Kim and think about that from a student-led activity. I think that's a great idea I think the biggest thing that Skye and Kayla talked about and this came out in a lot of conversations was relational versus transactional discussions and Relational meaning that but transactional meaning actually get something done. Well I meant more of the you know Pono Shim talks a lot about this he says in Hawaii when you talk about Aloha it really was about what is my personal relationship as a person to the you know person I'm talking to and it's you're an auntie you're an uncle you're a brother there's some sort of familial relationship and even if it's not it's a neighborly relationship it's a sense that I can't win if you lose we whatever comes about has to be a win-win and I think that at least in the discussions we were just having I think that that's something that came out very strongly I think in what they were talking about. So in a lot of our experiences it was about the culture would seem to be more of family more of a community Skye noticed a lot with the community with a lot of people are adopted in the sense that maybe not in the US American sense of adopted but in the sense that I'm here to guide you and support you and kind of mentor you into what you need and I think that experience is really interesting to see just the Marshallese culture side of that and I think that's really important to keep in mind when people are transitioning into Hawaii. That's an interesting aspect because we tend to probably break that down here by sending kids to the mainland of school or grow in Connecticut to school in this case maybe. And because we now become pigeonholed in the standard course work and development structure that we have evolved into education. And so I wonder how we would regain or recapture that synergy that sinew that ties everybody together. Kayla had a great idea earlier about having like host families almost or like foster families that you didn't necessarily have to live with but someone already in the US who could help the transition of the Marshallese to the US to go more smoothly. And I thought that was a really great idea because it flows with the Marshallese culture of family and adopting and guidance of your adopted family. And I thought that would really be a good way to help that transition, that difficult transition that many Marshallese have. That's a great idea. And I was just thinking of a corollary, as you said that. I came from a business side and aerospace business and you can't survive in that business as a new engineer unless you have a mentor or someone who was willing to look over your shoulder and let you make mistakes but kind of guide you in the right direction periodically. So a similar function here would be on the social side and of course you're thinking about the environmental and social connection so you would be a logical person to see that. So how would we model that? How would we make that into something that becomes a standard? How would we push that forward? How would we promote that kind of an idea? I don't think we have that structure here. We have it within families but frankly the western style of property ownership and such tends to break that down. So we have to come up with something else that replaces it and has strong bonds across different kinds of boundaries. Bounds across boundaries, about that. So my thought was that it's gonna take the cooperation between the Marshallese government and then either if you're working in Hawaii or Arkansas or Oregon where a lot of Marshallese are transitioning their lives to, it's first setting that connection up and then getting families or mentors or leaders in the community to step up and volunteer and say I'm willing to help support a family, maybe not monetarily but more of a guidance and offering resources here. I know these certain places are offering jobs or this is how you can start up your own business if you're interested in that or just be there to spiritually support them and guide them in what they need. So I think that's really where it's gonna start. And Greg, this goes back to the PECOM MOU again because what we're getting is symptoms and potential solutions that address those symptoms that are coming out of our young people addressing that by living that life for a short period of time. So how do we organically then turn that into some kind of a programmatic piece and you're of course in EDD. So discounting the dysfunctional part, the value added part of that. How do we take the educational theme development and capture what's going on here and turn it into something that becomes taught? Right, you just gave us or you answered your own question in a way because it's about what you learn growing up and what your values are growing up. So if you learn that competition is I've gotta get a better grade than you or I've gotta beat you out to get a place at Harvard or something like that, then it becomes a very individualistic win-lose situation. If on the other hand it's that we're on the same ship and we're all gonna sync together, then if you're not doing so well, I'm gonna slow down and I'm gonna stop and help you out. I think that's something where I saw examples of that and I think you talked about seeing similar examples. That's something that the Marshallese can and did teach us over the summer. They really are cohesive as a single unit and leadership by people like Scott Paul who was on earlier, he opened his house up to sky and so he's doing by action not only by words and so I think the more we're able to go interact with them, share what we know from the technology standpoint, learn what they know from a human relationship and community development perspective, I think it's only win-win from here on out. Okay and it'll be kind of up to you, I think, to court of Marshall, this Marshall Islands program within the EDD structure. I was gonna say I'm all about lazy is actually the next generation's leadership. At best, we have 10, 15, maybe 20 years of ability to move things but you guys have 30 to 50 years of being able to transform things and that's really what we're hoping to do through programs like Pacific Islands. It's really a next generation leadership development and not so much forming them into the leaders that we want them to be but allowing them to be the next generation leaders that are necessary for the challenges of the 21st century. This is cool because this becomes a real life, experience real life, touching real life, seeing where real life is different from what you might have thought real life is but this is where real life is in these areas that we're obligated to work with and to assist and support. So there's no other way to get this kind of experience and do what you did. You can't get it out of the textbook yet, maybe 10 years now, your textbook it'll be there and certainly in the normal development of teaching curriculums and such it would be hard to find a way to bring this in. So promoting this kind of interaction is gonna be a necessary element here and what I'm trying to do is link that back to the very subject we talk about here a lot and that would be our good favorite technology here called drones and droneism and things. These things are, we look at them like this as an artifact. Somebody else thought this up, somebody else designed it, somebody put the software in, the ground station over there's got some other software in it that somebody thought of but they weren't thinking of the exact problems that you're dealing with or that you can see happening. It would be really interesting to take what you've done so far and even our EPSCOR grant work that's coming along kind of behind this and have a way that that has a chance to influence these type of technical devices and that then would define the domains in the educational side of the house where workforce development's necessary to make these things occur in a manner that suits the mission. In fact that's exactly what the EPSCOR grant's all about trying to take the real mission and having the mission needs drive the technology design because again there's no aspect of technical education that doesn't have an influence on something like this but we've hidden it because you make something comes out of a box and it looks like this is all done, it's got structures, it's got electronics, it's got control, it's got power systems and we kind of make it like hands off. So somehow we have to, I'm just looking at this as an analogy of how we can use the thinking you're generating to figure out how these things really should emerge and then turn that into an educational pathway that leads us in that direction. So one of the things that we've talked about is project-based learning for the students. They're very hands-on. When you're interacting with them, they're very creative. You find us to be more associated with what you saw on Marshall Islands and other places that is PBL as a really well-embedded concept. Just an example, the kids there love creating these pop can boats. They just take pop cans and cut them up certain ways and fold them and then they make these little boats that they race in the ocean and they're different shapes and sizes and then they're actually really fast and really cool and it was just really cool to watch them take what you would think of as trash and make it into a toy and it was really evident with a lot of the things they did. Also, one of the families that live nearby, I was just hanging out with them and one day the mom pulls out a piece of tinfoil and the kid's face is lit up. Oh my gosh, what a tinfoil. Yes, it's Christmas all over again and he takes it and he starts doing something with it and I'm going, okay, he's just making, maybe making a ball or something and then later he comes over and it's Batman in the shape of using tinfoil and he made a little action figure next about their boy comes up and he made Godzilla out of the one sheet of tinfoil and it's just really tying to the fact that they don't have a lot of resources but their creativity and their problem solving skills are very- Problem solving, problem based learning. These are things that we don't necessarily build into our curriculum around here until Greg graduates and the more we can take that approach forward. Some universities like Olin University, Olin is, Olin or something like that is headed in that direction in the U.S. And mostly we pigeonhole things in departments. So maybe what we can do is that's, maybe that's the nut of this whole conversation, PBL, project based learning which to us is something we have to learn to them that comes naturally. So that's something we can take forward how they think about project based learning from their daily experiences and use that as a training program. And with that, fantastic conversation. Really appreciate what you guys have done and then in fact you're coming on the show to talk about it and you'll spread this gospel within your friends and such and generate more people coming down under Greg's leadership next year. But at this point we've managed to exhaust our time. So let me just thank you, Kayla. Thank you very much. Ishida and Skye Goddard. And once again, Greg Nakano. Soon to be Dr. Greg Nakano. And pleasure having you on the show and pleasure hearing what you're doing and Godspeed to you in the future. Thank you for having me. Thank you very much.