 THINKTECH on OC-16, Hawaii's weekly newscast on things that matter to tech and Hawaii. I'm Lisa Anderson. And I'm Kaui Lucas. In our show this time, we'll take you to the THINKTECH 2016 holiday gathering at the downtown Laniakea YWCA. It was the best yet. Hundreds of people showed up to meet our hosts, guests, and supporters, and former Governor John Wahee gave a great talk about today's politics. THINKTECH's holiday gathering for 2016 was our way of giving thanks to those who have supported our efforts. Remember, this is the 16th year of THINKTECH on planet Hawaii. It was raining that night, but as luck would have it, we were able to move from the courtyard to Fuller Hall next to Cafe Julia at Laniakea. And that was really perfect. First, we bless the occasion with a Pule by Kaylee Iakina, our talk show host of Ehana Kako, who was the same day sworn in as a new Oha trustee. Everyone knows that the media is in a time of transformation. This spring, THINKTECH's Jay Fidel and Carol Mon Lee paid their way to the NAB show, the National Association of Broadcasters Convention in Las Vegas. They learned about this convergence in the media and found that THINKTECH is a part of it. Yes, THINKTECH now streams more than 30 live shows a week and broadcasts its feed all night long, and we do news. We've been heavily engaged in covering the 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, the elections of course, the IUCN World Conservation Congress, COP21 and COP22, among other things. We have nearly 6,000 videos and will soon achieve a million views. We have some 30 hosts and hundreds of guests who come through our studio every month. They talk about what is dear to them and what they feel is important to you. There's a tremendous gratification in that for everyone involved. We are an extended family doing good work and we're on a mission. As these hundreds of hosts and guests come and go through our studio, they talk to each other, rubbing shoulders, comparing notes. They are our THINKTECH community and they care. After opening remarks by our CEO Jay Fidel, we had a word from our Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Carol Mon Lee, who works so hard for THINKTECH. Jay always listens to her and you should too. So welcome to our holiday gathering for 2016. This is the 16th year of THINKTECH on the planet Hawaii. Thank you so much for coming. It's so great to see you all. We were a little concerned about the rain, but actually this room has turned out wonderfully and it's just been great. So I just wanted to tell you about one little program that we started this summer and it's our summer internship program through the help of social media and help with the DOE that we were able to get three interns this summer. One from the University of Hawaii ACM, thank you Marlene. One from St. Andrews Priority, Emily Kerrth, who's here with us tonight, and Haley Ikeda who is a senior at Kalaheo High School. So we just wanted you to know that we are working in addition to providing content for the world, that we are also training the next generation. Then we heard from THINKTECH Senior Production Engineer, Zuri Bender, who gives us such beautiful productions. Through her, we can appreciate the perspective of the dedicated staff at THINKTECH. Thank you all so much for coming today. Look around you, look at the diversity in this room, diversity, diversity, me and Jay are debating over that, but it's so great to see you all here. Where would we be without our hosts? I don't know, would we just have one show a day? I don't know what we could do, the words don't even come to me right now. The people that our hosts bring in every day, the guests, they actually walk the talk and they teach us what they're doing. Thank you all so much for helping us to raise awareness and to make the community better every day, locally and globally. At that point, we charged our glasses for a toast, a bonsai to THINKTECH and its staff, hosts, guests, directors, underwriters, viewers, advisors and friends. A bonsai of togetherness to make our Camelot last, as they say, for 10,000 years. Then we heard from our featured speaker, former Governor John Wahey, host of our Talk Show Talk Story with John Wahey. He is a person who has played an important role in the history of our state. After UH Law School, he served as a delegate to the 1978 Constitutional Convention, where he helped create OHA and adopt the Hawaiian language as an official language of the state. He served in the State House of Representatives from 1981 to 1983, and that is Lieutenant Governor until 1986. He was Governor from 1986 to 1994. In that period, tourism and foreign investment flourished, especially from Japan. These were productive times for him and for Hawai'i. Jay asked me to talk about politics in Hawai'i and the nation. And he said, you know, who or what has changed. And I thought that I would, at this point, you know, make myself look scholarly and try to distill the universe into one word. And that one word is demographics, demographics, okay? Now how many people in this room were born after 1972? Okay. Well, you know what that means? That means the majority of you in this room did not vote for me. That's where we start this conversation. Actually, this demographics thing is like the, you know, like the cheap way out whenever anybody asks you, you know, what's changed in politics. I am almost sure that when somebody asked Kamehameha II what had changed from when his dad was in office, Kamehameha I, he probably said demographics, you know. So don't worry folks, we're not going to spend our evening with numbers and trends. I'm going to put that on the side. You really want to know about demographics, go to the University of Hawai'i and talk to somebody that actually knows what they're talking about. The second big change or possible answer for tonight was social media. Obviously, social media is changing our world, making communications fast and easy and intruding into our privacy. I mean, we've got a president-elect now that tells you what he thinks at three o'clock in the morning. His remarks were thoughtful, warm and provocative, and as you can see, public office agreed with him. Now, more than 20 years later, note how young he looks and see his winning disposition and sense of humor. He was the perfect speaker to help us understand the way politics work in Hawai'i. That was only part of John Wahey's talk. We're posting a full video of the talk on our ThinkTech YouTube channel, and you can see it there. Then we presented our Community Service Awards. In 2014, ThinkTech recognized individual ThinkTech shows with the highest number of viewers, and in 2015, we recognized six of our talk show series that epitomized our mission of raising public awareness. This year, ThinkTech was pleased to recognize five organizations, small and large, that have made notable contributions to our community by their dedication to the common good. The first award went to Hawai'i Opera Theater, HOT, Hawai'i's very own Grand Opera Company. It was accepted by Evelyn Lance of Hawai'i Opera Theater. To Hawai'i Opera Theater for its outstanding service to the community in producing and bringing the art of world-class opera to our audiences and schools, and in raising Hawai'i's quality of performing arts, life, and public engagement, thank you. Don't forget to get your tickets to attend HOT's next production in January, Streetcar Named Desire. It's hot, of course. Check it out at hawaiiopera.org. The next award went to IHS, the Institute for Human Services, which provides services for the homeless in Hawai'i. The award was accepted by Connie Mitchell and Kimo Carvalho of IHS. Want to know more? Check out IHSHawaii.org. To the Institute for Human Services for its outstanding service to the community in operating a 24-hour shelter for men, women, and families with children. As Hawai'i's oldest, largest, and most comprehensive human services agency, it continues to develop innovative solutions and programs to end and prevent homelessness in Hawai'i. Thank you, Institute for Human Services, Connie Mitchell, Kimo Carvalho. The next award went to Make'em Smile. It was accepted by Seymour Kazemirski of Make'em Smile. For more, see Make'emSmileHawaii.com. Presented to Make'em Smile for its outstanding service to the community in bringing the joy of music into the lives of those who need it most. Its volunteers visit hospitals and use music to aid in the healing process of patients by providing joy and hope. Make'em Smile is beloved by so many people who have benefited from the creative kindness of its volunteers. Thank you to Make'em Smile and Seymour Kazemirski. The next award went to OC16 on Oceanic Cable, which of course broadcasts on Cable Channel 12. It was accepted by the two of us, yes, us, as hosts of ThinkTech on OC16. For more, check it out on Cable Channel 12 or OC16.tv. Community Service Award presented to OC16 for outstanding service to the community in broadcasting quality cable TV programming of community interest to more than 300,000 households in Hawaii. And in so doing, raising the quality of our lives together in these islands. Thank you. Thank you, OC16. Thank you, Elise Anderson. Thank you, Kaui Lucas. The next and last award went to Pacific Forum CSIS, the Center for Strategic and International Studies. It was accepted by David Santoro and Joni Solis. Presented to Pacific Forum CSIS for its outstanding service to the larger community in researching, analyzing, and educating the public on strategic and foreign policy issues and events in the Asia-Pacific region. And in so doing, raising Hawaii's level of global awareness. Thank you, Pacific Forum. Thank you, David Santoro. And of course, thank you, Joni Solis. If you want to know more about Pacific Forum, see csis.org slash program slash pacific-forum-csis. All in all, ThinkTech's holiday gathering went well and was inspiring. If you were there, thanks for coming and supporting ThinkTech in these efforts and community awards. If not, we hope you'll be there next year. In the meantime, as we like to say, better every day, more perfect every moment. My name is Raya Salter. I'm the host of Power Up Hawaii. I'm an energy attorney and a principal of Imagine Power LLC. And I'm here to support ThinkTech and I'm happy to be a new part of the team. Well, my name is Bert Lum and I actually kind of have been involved with the tech industry for a long time and I've been doing a radio show. In fact, the radio show that we do called Bite Marks Cafe, which is on Hawaii Public Radio, came right after ThinkTech. And ThinkTech was on prior to our show coming on. So we took over that time slot. So that's kind of my entree into this whole sort of tech reporting business. My name is Howard Wake. I'm the host of Code Green, which specializes in energy-efficient technologies. And I'm at the party because I'm a host of Code Green. And I hope to meet some very, very interesting people here tonight. My name is Rich Turbin. I've also been sort of a host on ThinkTech a few times and a guest. And I think the world of ThinkTech and what they're trying to do, expand the intellectual horizons for the people of Hawaii. So it's an honor to be here and ThinkTech should be honored. I'm Seymour Kazimersky. I am a host. It's called Seymour's World. And we talk about everything and anything that people want to discuss. We've been doing it for three years now and it's been wonderful because we get to contact people, let them express their feelings and make sure that the whole world knows about them. This week we did a show called I Beat Cancer, which is wonderful to help people understand what to do with cancer. So it's great. I truly enjoy it. Sure. My name is Joni Solis. I'm with Pacific Forum CSIS. So we're actually going to be awarded for the Community Contribution Award tonight. So we're invited for that. But we've been partners with ThinkTech for years and years. We've hosted segments and we've also shared our expertise on the Asia-Pacific affairs with that. And ThinkTech does amazing work in sharing awareness on so many different topics and things that are important to Hawaii but also the world. So we're complete supporters of ThinkTech. So David Centaur also with Pacific Forum CSIS. So we're getting an award, like Joni said. Yeah, we've been doing a lot of work with ThinkTech over the years. I've actually done a couple of programs with Jay and it's been fantastic. Great coverage, great feedback. And yeah, so we're here to support. I'm Jon David N and I'm a professor at Hawaii Pacific University. And Jay started inviting me on to various shows, Global Connections, Life in the Law, you know, the local community, various shows. And I don't know, we've got this thing going where Jay asks really interesting questions and I give interesting answers. So it's really fun. I really love it, yeah. I'm Sharon Moriwaki and I'm here to support Jay and ThinkTech Hawaii because they do an outstanding job for the community in issues, controversies, and getting people to speak the truth. And we do the energy program on Wednesday, the Energy Wednesday, Jim, Albert, and Ray have been on and they're terrific too. So we have terrific hosts and interviewees. Who's on ThinkTech Hawaii? Well I'm Ray Starling and I've been in the energy business for most of my life and actually ThinkTech has really helped a lot with exposing the people that watch ThinkTech to energy issues in Hawaii, which I think this is where it's happening. And so we work together mainly on the energy show on Wednesdays and occasionally we place people in other shows talking about energy matters. So that's why I'm here, I'm here to support. I'm Jim Alberts with Hawaiian Electric and the main reason I'm here is to support Jay and the ThinkTech network. Jay's a good friend. He really helps advance the energy thought process, the energy innovations that need to be talked about. So the fact that ThinkTech goes out of its way to facilitate that process on its shows to be able to bring out new ideas, good ideas, controversial ideas. Just to keep things moving, I think that's a great thing to do. So I support Jay and the whole ThinkTech network. Hi, my name is Julie Kuo and I'm from Hawaii USA 2017. I'm here to support the event and this is actually my first time here so I'm really excited for it. My name is Nicole Patterson. I'm here to support ThinkTech because one of my good friends, Miramira, she is the host of Eva Hawaii and she was kind enough to feature us on her show a couple weeks ago. And you know she invited us and she said it would be a great opportunity to meet people, to introduce Julie to everybody and just to see, you know, what the public policy and different topics are, you know, what's happening in Hawaii. Hi, I'm Zuri Bender. I'm the senior production engineer for ThinkTech Hawaii. I'm here at our holiday party, our annual holiday party. It's so good to have everyone here. I'm just so amazed that, I just have to say John Wahee, the political commentary. It was just perfect for tonight. It's so ThinkTech. It's good to see everybody here, you know, it's just, I'm so proud to be a part of ThinkTech and thank you so much for being a part of our family. Aloha. Well, it was a great night obviously and because it was good to meet all the other hosts. You know, we, I go over to Tic Tac and I know some of the people but most of the people that are hosting are our pictures on the wall. So here they are tonight. We're all gathered together and it's good, you know, it's committed people to discussing issues and to talking about making our world better. And now let's take a look at our ThinkTech calendar of events going forward. There's so much happening in Hawaii. Sometimes things happen under the radar and we don't hear much about them. But ThinkTech will take you there. Remember, you can watch ThinkTech on OC16 several times every week to stay current on what's happening in government, industry, academia and communities around the islands and the world. Remember also that ThinkTech broadcasts its daily talk shows live on the internet from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays. Then we broadcast our earlier shows all night long and on the weekends. And some people listen to them all night long and on the weekends. If you missed a show or you want to replay or share any of our shows, they're all archived on ThinkTechHawaii.com and YouTube. For our audio stream, go to ThinkTechHawaii.com slash radio. Visit ThinkTechHawaii.com for a weekly calendar and live stream and YouTube links or sign up on our email list to get the daily docket of our upcoming shows and uploads. ThinkTech has a high-tech green screen first amendment studio at Pioneer Plaza. If you want to be part of our live audience or participate in our programs and help us raise public awareness, contact us at Think at ThinkTechHawaii.com. Give us a thumbs up on YouTube or send us a tweet at ThinkTechHI. We'd like to know how you feel about the issues and events that affect our lives in Hawaii. We want to stay in touch with you and we'd like you to stay in touch with us. Let's think together. In fact, you can call in and join our talk shows live. While you're watching any of our shows, you can call us at 415-871-2474 and pose a question or make a comment to participate in the discussion. And now, here's this week's ThinkTech commentary. I'm Elise Anderson with this week's ThinkTech commentary. Here in Hawaii, we celebrate a variety of holidays during this wintry season of bigger waves and greener valleys. Diverse as our celebrations may be, however, several themes ring out in unison across iconically distinct traditions. It's really quite remarkable that across the world, from Montana to Montenegro, from Mardi Gras to Makahiki, we all use the same months as a chance to define and reflect upon what matters to us as individuals and as human beings. In a sense, this is the time of year when we write and revise the statements of purpose for our time on planet Earth. Musical lyrics about this season become timeless just a bit more readily than other catchy tunes. One of my many favorites tells us, it's the most wonderful time of the year. Another implores the audience to have yourself a merry little Christmas. Reconciling these lyrics may confuse children about the holiday season. When I first heard Blaine's hit performed at a Christmas party, I laughed hysterically. Who wants to have a merry little Christmas? I guffawed. It sounded like a curse to one anticipating heaps of American girl, Looney Tunes, or Pokemon paraphernalia under the tree. Had the singer told me to have myself a bloated enormous Christmas, I would have had no problem jumping on board. It was, after all, the most wonderful time of the year. Several decades have passed since that Christmas party, but I remember exactly who was kneeling on stage and who was sitting next to me at our table like it was yesterday. At the time, however, my chief concern surrounded whether I was going to find my new doll's wicker chairs or brass bed under the tree a few days later, or maybe it was Pokemon cards or Beanie Babies. I don't recall such things now, but I'll never forget the lyrics. Our priorities do change as we grow. An adult understands as a child cannot that Andy Williams and Ralph Blaine are really saying the same thing. An ideal Christmas is both wonderful and little. As we gather together with friends and family in places we cherish, we inscribe circles around our lives. This is who I am and this is what I love, we say. The smaller the circle, the more enhanced its contents. To flourish at Christmas time is both small and grand. In short, the stakes are high. Airlines understand this and we confirm it each year, always willing to sacrifice three-fold even four-fold normal fares for a flight. It might only cost $300 to fly from Hawaii to New York a week later, but we happily pay $1,200 to get there for Christmas or New Year's Day. Our presence on those days more than others makes statements that are just that important. So as you depart for another night's rest, I invite you to embark on a mindful holiday season. Timely but also timeless, your words and whereabouts during this season more than others will be remembered more crisply than usual by those who care most about you. Be kind, be deliberate, surround yourself with those you love, immersed in the places you love. If finance is hinder certain things, venture virtual voyages. Pick up the phone, wire the webcam. Do step aside from the frolics however long enough to reflect. Write in your journal, chat with your spouse, pray to your God, meditate. Who are you? How far have you come this year? Where do you want to go next year? Who has stepped in and who has left your life? The holidays are a wonderful time to clean house, to repaint and to build those walls into the home of your dreams. I'm Elise Anderson with this week's Think Tech commentary. 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. Remember you can watch Think Tech on OC16 several times every week. Can't get enough of it just like Cowie does. For additional times check out OC16.tv. For lots more Think Tech videos and for underwriting and sponsorship opportunities on Think Tech, visit ThinkTechHawaii.com. Be a guest or a host, a producer or an intern and help us reach and have an impact on Hawaii. Thanks so much for being part of our Think Tech family and for supporting our open discussion of tech, energy, diversification and global awareness in Hawaii. You can watch this show throughout the week and tune in next Sunday evening for our next important weekly episode. I'm Elise Anderson and I'm Cowie Lucas. Aloha everyone.