 Think Tech Hawaii covers stories that matter to tech and to Hawaii. I'm Jay Fidel. And I'm Keisha King. Every December, Think Tech has a holiday party and awards ceremony for its hosts, guests, directors, underwriters, and friends. This year we had a huge proud with keynote remarks by Claire Connors, the state's attorney general, and the presentation of a number of Think Tech awards. Now, going into our 20th year, it's important that we thank our Think Tech family with a party like this, and that we present community service and Think Tech awards to deserving individuals and organizations. Then we had our program. First, Kumu Bradlum with an Oli. Then Jay Fidel with welcoming remarks, followed by Claire Connors, the attorney general of the state. Former Governor John Wahe, then helped us present our various Think Tech awards. Since we last met last year, Think Tech has continued to deliver important, diverse, unique, and global content to our community. OC16 and Ollella programs have been acknowledged by an SBA media in journalism award this year. We have enhanced our equipment and production quality with our experienced staff and enthusiastic hosts, many of whom are here tonight. And this fall, we presented a media symposium in collaboration with Accord 3.0 and Hawaii Business Magazine. Beginning next year, we're transforming to Think Tech 3.0. 1.0 was radio. 2.0 was our green screen studio at Pioneer Plaza. 3.0 will be located at a new, more compact studio at the Finance Factors Center building with a cable news-type television background technology for hosts and more remote connections with guests here and everywhere in the world. Now onto our program. First, we'll have opening remarks from Claire Connors, the attorney general of the state of Hawaii. So I'm going to talk about one particular issue each month that we've faced in the department and that might have resonance with all the gatherers here today and I'll try to do it. I'm not going to sing but I think by the end of it you might feel that same frenetic energy that I always feel at the end of 12 days of Christmas where you think there's a lot going on in that song, there's a lot going on with our department. How are we going to utilize the wonderful resources that we have with the department and the kind of capacity that we can bring to the state government to make sure things are thoughtful and deliberate and lawful is exactly what gets me up every morning and what makes me very proud to stand behind the 800 employees of the department and to work alongside them. We're not going to hit it out of the park every time but we're in the game and we're in it for you and we're a team worth moving forward. So thank you. Claire with all that training and experience, all those issues and events in your first year as attorney general of the state of Hawaii, has it ever occurred to you to put in for a quieter job, the attorney general of the United States? Okay we are presenting three community service awards and three think tech Hawaii awards to those we have identified as providing extraordinary contributions to our community. Here to help us present these awards is our special guest and regular think tech host Governor John Wahey. First community service award is to Professor Chip Fletcher, that's Charles Fletcher. He's the associate dean for academic affairs and professor of earth science in the school of ocean and earth science at UH Manoa for his invaluable contributions to public understanding of climate change and sea level rise in Hawaii. This state is amazing. It's an amazing place to be a climate scientist because it has not been hard to get everybody, government agencies, nonprofits, schools, various institutions and just individuals to understand the science of climate change and to accept the scientists are here on your behalf and want to serve you and are here for your safety. I want to thank think tech and the board of directors. This is an amazing opportunity. I want to thank my family, my wife Ruth who is head of school of St. Andrews Priory, my daughter, Kellan, who is a psychology teacher at Punahoa Academy. She teaches AP psych and my other daughter, Katie, who is the outdoor manager at Four Seasons up in Coalina. So if you ever go up there, ask for Katie Fletcher. The government agencies in Hawaii have been so cooperative. They're so interested in learning. They want to know and I'm invited all the time to give talks to groups of various types, offices, agencies and they are now wanting to know how do we incorporate climate science into our policies and into making this state a safe and resilient location. It's amazing. I went on a week long sea level rise learning tour with a dozen agency heads from the city and county and also the state to Miami Beach to Charleston and to Boston where they are struggling with sea level rise real time. We met with agency heads there. We exchanged ideas. It was an incredible opportunity to ferment ideas to bring here to Hawaii as we face the threat of sea level rise. And I want to thank my home institution, the school of ocean and earth science and technology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. What a great place to be a professional scientist, also to be an educator and to be a servant to you folks here in the state of Hawaii. So thank you very much. Our next community service award is to Robert Pennybacker of PBS. Robert Pennybacker is director of learning initiatives at PBS Hawaii. For his work as director of learning initiatives at PBS Hawaii. Thank you to think tech Hawaii for this honor. Quite a surprise and I'm very honored. I want to thank my wife Lorraine Akiba who has been supporting me throughout all my adventures. I want to recognize my boss Leslie Wilcox, CEO of PBS Hawaii. For whom she denies it but without her there would be no kikino. Really groundbreaking concept that everyone thought we were crazy to take on and low and behold eight years later it's a fantastic program. And I just wanted to share with you my experiences working with these young people. The so-called Generation Z. They're the students that are in middle and high school right now. I'm really convinced and I'm not kidding you that I think they're going to save us. And that's really gratifying to know just by what I've witnessed and working with them. And there's been research on this as well. They've been compared to the greatest generation, the World War II generation. And I really believe it. They know that they've got a lot on their hands when they graduate from college. But they're tech savvy. They're problem solvers. They're really smart. But beyond that more importantly we've learned working with them as journalists that they don't prejudge people. Which is really, really spectacular. And they have a characteristic that really is what is going to save us. And that's empathy. They really have empathy for the world and for all of us. So what I'd like to advise all of us is that we support them. We give them opportunities. And then get out of their way. You should watch PBS. And you should watch HIKI NŌ. That is when you're not watching think tech. And when you watch HIKI NŌ you should think of Robert Pennybacker because he's the guy that makes it happen. Did I do that right, Leslie? All right. Our final community service award is to Chief Justice Mark Rectonwald, Chief Justice of the Hawaii State Supreme Court. For his outstanding contribution to the people of Hawaii in providing access to legal services and justice through a distinguished legal career. It was a great honor to be recognized tonight because of the high regard in which I hold think tech. I mean I've told Jay this many times. The discussion, the conversation, the think tech fosters in our community I think is vital to the future of our community, to its vitality and frankly to the future of our democracy. And that's something we think about a lot at the judiciary. You know we don't have the power of the purse like the legislature does. We don't have state employees and share of sub-martials or police who we can order like the executive branch does. We frankly have the power of ideas behind us. And the understanding of the separation of powers, what the rule of law means, and the role of courts in our democracy is really the power that we have. And the only way that that works is if citizens understand what we do and why those things matter. And one way we've done that that I think is very consistent with what think tech Hawaii stands for is bringing our court, the Supreme Court out into the community to hold oral arguments around the state and high schools. We were just out at Waipahu High School a couple weeks ago. We had almost 500 high school students from the leeward side. We've reached more than 5,000 students since we started doing this back in 2012. The response from the students is amazing because they can actually see what a court is, how it works, and they'll say things like, I never realized that the court would ask such tough questions of both sides. And to me that's basically the definition of the rule of law. It doesn't matter who you are, it doesn't matter whether you have the power of the state of Hawaii or you're a criminal defendant, you're going to get the same even-handed treatment in fair shake when you come before a court in the state. So I want to thank all of the lawyers who go out and volunteer their times in the schools, Hawaii State Bar Association, Richardson School of Law, and others who've helped make that program possible. I have three folks from my office here, Kathy Bruce, Grace Canoes, and Kurt Shabato over here, and I'd like to acknowledge them for all they've done to make that program possible. And again I want to thank Think Tech for everything it does for this community. Wouldn't he be fabulous on the United States Supreme Court? We also gave awards to three of our Think Tech family. Host of the year went to Yukari Kunisui, host of Kunichiwa, Hawaii. Show of the year went to Kondo Insider, hosted by Jane Sugimora and Richard Emory. And underwriter of the year went to Hawaiian Electric led by CEO Alan Oshima. Now on to our three Think Tech Hawaii Awards. Our first award is our Think Tech Host of the Year Award. It goes to Yukari Kunisui, host of Kunichiwa, Hawaii for her dedication, sensitivity, and open creativity as a citizen journalist on Think Tech Hawaii in founding, developing, and producing the unique and enriching Kunichiwa, Hawaii bilingual talk show. I'm Yukari and to be really honest with you, I have no idea why I got this award and it done on me. Ah, none of the board members understand the show. It's all in Japanese, but I wanted to thank, as you know, you're a host, some of you. The success of the show is always depend on guests. And I have always wonderful guests. And I have honored to have three guests here today. So I'd like to introduce Mayumi Abis. Would you like to stand up? Okay. She's a survivor of colon cancer. She beat the cancer and globally famous Yoshishira Ishii. He's an architect and he's a designer and famous in New York. And my most recent kimono and cosmetologist guest Naoko Takabue. As you can see a beautiful kimono she is introducing. We know why she got the award. We thought about it a lot and she totally, totally deserves it. Our think tech show of the year award goes to condo insider hosted by Jane Sugimura, Yuriko Jane Sugimura and Richard Emery for its contributions to raising public awareness about the management and operation of condominium projects in our state. Jane and Richard and Cheryl and Krista have hosted 130 episodes and have made this show useful, authoritative and popular in the condominium community. We had a whole lot of guests from the community participate in our discussion. And I especially want to thank Senator Ross Baker who challenged us maybe two years ago. She challenged Richard and I who do a lot of advocating for condominiums in the legislature. She says you got to find a way to stop these condo people from calling us the legislators and complaining about the boards of directors. And so you guys got to do something so that this stops. And so she says it's got to be something that is free and it's got to be something where people don't have to take off work to go to a seminar. And so I was talking to Jay, my long time law partner and he said why don't you come on our show and come to Think Tech and we'll put you on YouTube. There's really no one in the state of Hawaii has made the kind of contributions to the development of the condominium model. And the as she says the caring for our neighbors in condominium living as Jane Sugimura. Our Think Tech Underwriter of the Year award goes to Hawaiian Electric Company led by CEO Alan Oshima. Jim Kelly, communications director of Hawaiian Electric Company is here and will accept the award by making financial underwriter contributions to Think Tech along with so many other Hawaii community organizations and by providing a variety of talk show guests on stories related to the development of clean energy and sustainability in Hawaii without any expectation of affecting our coverage. We recognize and thank Hawaiian Electric Company for its faithful and continuing support of Think Tech's efforts to serve this community. On behalf of Alan Oshima Hawaiian Electric, thank you so much for this recognition. You know, we should be doing something for you. Who else would give us a platform to talk about integrated grid planning, you know? He calls up and he says, hey, Jim, can you get somebody down here to talk about distributed resource management systems? It's really like a blank check. So I appreciate that very much, Jay. And we appreciate the role that Think Tech plays because as any regular viewer of Think Tech knows or anybody who pays attention to the news, we're on a pretty ambitious mission to replace all of our fossil fuels with renewable resources by 2045. We're going to probably get that done a lot sooner. But this isn't just something for Hawaiian Electric to do. This involves everybody in this room and everybody in this state. And I think one of the most important platforms that we have for explaining how this all works and trying to get people involved and excited is Think Tech. And in this kind of fragmented media landscape, it's nice to know that that someone really does care about integrated grid planning. And we'll let you talk about it for an hour. So thank you very much. I appreciate it. And I appreciate everything that you do, Jay. And thanks for everything you do at Think Tech. A round of applause for all of our awardees. We want to thank directors, underwriters, hosts, guests, staff and friends. It takes a lot of people. We also had a chance to walk around the floor as we customarily do. Excellent. It was wonderful. Everybody is so open, bubbly. Just the information that you're sharing with all of us is wonderful. You guys have done many, many episodes and helping the community with a diverse, diverse, diverse subject. You can introduce me and yeah. This is a different world for me. You open the new door for me. I really appreciate it. Oh, yes you do. This next generation of kids is really going to save us. And so if I could play a little part in just helping them learn the tools, they're going to take them and run with them. Food is good. The awards were great. We reached a lot more people through the Kondo Insider Think Tech YouTube show. One of the few basins of free speech in Hawaii and America. It was just absolutely amazing. And I'm so glad that I was a part of it. I think you're doing a great service for the state of Hawaii. For what you do is provide for the community. Because that's something that was really important when I was drawn to Think Tech, Hawaii, was that you're giving people a voice. And I've known it's been a multicultural island, but this is the most diverse group I've been in. And to feel the energy, the diverse support, the diverse experience of sharing each other's lives through Think Tech just thrills me. I realize I will not be on this planet forever. And I have so gosh darn much good stuff in my head that I gosh darn well better pass it on to the young generation so that they can absorb it and go far, far, far beyond. Have a good time tonight, Peter. You did a great job. This is always fun. You know, and I know being in the studio and chitchatting with you every once in a while is a pleasure and a half. Yeah, I'm just calming down now. But thank you for that magnificent performance up front. I enjoyed it a lot. I was really into that distributed grid show. And I was not kidding. I actually watched that show. My head is in the enjoyment of this particular group of people who are so friendly and have been sharing all about their work with Teach, Think Tech, Hawaii and pumping me up about, hey, do something or you know. This is Hayley Ikeda and her dad, Gary. I never knew all that stuff about your guests, you know, the Supreme Court justice and all of the attorney general. Really nice to see everyone here together and the host because usually there's only one host at the studio during a certain hour, but now they're here talking with each other. We love our Think Tech family and we love throwing our annual holiday party for them and see them get together and enjoy their common bond with Think Tech. Think Tech streams its daily talk shows live on the internet from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. most weekdays. Then we broadcast our earlier shows all night long and on the weekends. If you missed a show or if you want to replay or share our shows, they're all archived on demand on ThinkTechHawaii.com and YouTube. Visit ThinkTechHawaii.com for our weekly calendar and YouTube links. Or better yet, sign up on our email list and get our daily email advisories. Give us a thumbs up on YouTube or send us a tweet at Think Tech HI. We like to know how you feel about the issues and events that affect our lives in these islands and in this country. We'll be right back to wrap up this week's edition of Think Tech, but first we want to thank our underwriters. That wraps up this week's edition of Think Tech on OC16. For lots more Think Tech talk and feature shows and for underwriting and sponsorship opportunities on Think Tech, visit ThinkTechHawaii.com. Thanks so much for being part of our Think Tech family and for supporting our open discussion of tech, energy, diversification, global awareness, and the ongoing search for innovation wherever we can find it. I'm Keisha King. And I'm Jay Fidel. Aloha everyone.