 ThinkTek Hawaii, civil engagement lives here. Welcome to Talk Story with John Whitehead. You know today I thought we'd walk down a lane, something to do with technology. Let me tell you why, folks. You've got to remember that when I was governor of the state of Hawaii, we didn't even have an internet. Can you imagine a time like that? And yet, starting with the Governor Burns, Governor Yoshi and myself and all every governor since then, we've been talking about the day when we create a high technology industry for the state of Hawaii. Well, I thought today it would be interesting if we talk to a couple of people who know something about the state of the technology business in Hawaii. And so, first of all, a well-known CEO of my boss, in a sense, and here at WhiteTek and Jay Fidel. And Jay, you have introduced me to a guest, and so why don't you tell us who our third person is. Okay. Our third person is Dave Stevens. He's with what? Copylonging Community College? Am I getting that right? Yeah, you did. Yeah. What? They're good. Yeah. Most of cyber... Cyber underground. Cyber underground. And he has a show on ThinkTek, and he's talking about cyber underground all the time. And we have a very rich offering in that area. Yeah. I couldn't... I'm excited about this, because just the very name of your show, Cyber Underground, tells us that there may be a revolution going on someplace. There is. And from what all the governments may be doing. Oh, certainly. Yeah. With the government. Multiple layers. This is a multiple-layer cake. You can't just divide it up one or two pieces. Everybody's taking a piece of it. And cyber right now, we're in the Pacific Rim. We're centered right in the Middle Pacific right now, and we're at the vanguard of the assault, if we get attacked by any of our hostile neighbors in cybersecurity. So we train for that eventuality. We train cybersecurity workers here in Hawaii. The state of cybersecurity right now. This is 0% unemployment rate. So our kids walk out with a two-year degree. They're almost guaranteed a job. As well, I promote entrepreneurship. So there is something going on. Things are happening. Oh, yeah. Definitely. Because you don't feel it in terms of the legislative support for it. I don't feel that, I must admit. I don't feel a lot of legislative support in that area. It seems like people have different priorities at this time. Yeah. Well, is it because the private sector may be doing it all on its own or why? I think it has to at this time. Big vendors, Sony Pictures, Target, Home Depot, they all get hacked and they lose billions of dollars. So people know that they have to protect themselves on their own. So cybersecurity has become a burgeoning industry across the world, not just the United States. And in Hawaii, we've heavily focused on it. We had a Department of Labor grant that helped us at the University of Hawaii Community College System distribute about $10 million for cybersecurity curriculum and training programs over the last three years. And we've implemented that. Now we're starting to get our first generation of cyber warriors going out there working for DOD, NSA, CIA, FBI, and they're getting full-ride scholarships for the last two years. This is absolutely amazing. By the way, this is so new to me, you can jump in anytime. But let me tell you, I'm thinking back, as you said here. Well, first of all, thank you for doing something of a cybersecurity. I myself has probably been hacked at least twice, mostly because I walked into the trap. Somebody calls me up on the telephone and tells me such and such is happening and at least now I know enough, and having suffered enough, you've got to wait like weeks to get your credit card back or something. And anyway, the stake in my relationship with all of this starts with the, this is technology. You need to understand this. I come into office in 1986. I get elected. I was Lieutenant Governor. I am going to inherit this beautiful new investment in technology that my predecessor Governor Riyoshi had just done when he spent millions of dollars to get the best weighing machines. Oh, the mainframes. Yeah. The best weighing word processors that we have ever seen. You're really dating yourself, John. I know. So you never remember. And what happened was, within six months, nobody was using weighing or so. I mean, doing the course of my, because technology had changed so fast, and by the time I'm leaving office, my staff proposes to put a computer, which is this huge, monstrous thing on my desk in my office, to set me up for email to my directors. And the thing about it is, the email connection was one person to another. One wire, apparently, one, one, one, one, one like this. And so, you know, and that's the, well, the justification back then, well, outside of the fact that that was the level of technology, was that that was security, you know, because you only could get to one person, ostensibly. Now we have all of these exciting things happening in my telephone. I receive now, I don't know, maybe 50 to 100 emails a day. Most of it, by the way, are not exactly appreciated. Most of it is because my wife or somebody talked me into doing, buying something online. And now you're on a list. Yeah. But I can see where we went, the technology increased so much, but at the same time, we exposed ourselves. Sure. Yeah, yeah. You know, what's been your experience? You actually worked in all of this, kept up? Yeah, I was the chair of the High Tech Development Corporation, now known as the Hawaii Tech Development Corporation. Yeah, you guys got kicked out. Adam and Noah, Innovation Center. Yeah, we, I shouldn't say we, because I'm not associated with it anymore. But I understand that it lost its position there, and it has to leave. It had a 25-year position, kind of a sandwich. And now the university wanted it to leave, and legislature didn't protect it, and so it has to go. It's not going immediately, but it's losing its position there, and it no longer has a home. Well, does it, has it lost its purpose? I mean, is it viable? HTDC? Yeah. I hope so. You know, there's also a bill that's sitting on the governor's desk right now that would have a really negative effect on HTDC. One aspect of it is that it would merge HTDC with HSDC, member of the Hawaii Strategic Development Corporation, and also kind of like defund it. Also, they would transfer the responsibilities, but not the money. Something like that, yeah. And if Governor Ige signs that, if he signs that, that would be probably the end. If he vetoes it, that would be good. Well, the exciting thing that we were talking about earlier had to do with cyber security. No, we're getting much more basic. Well, I think Dave was talking about the people who had Capulonic Community College at other schools in the state who study cyber security, which is a hot area, and get jobs mostly with the federal government, and they do pretty well. Well, also with my local bank and everybody else. Do they get jobs with local banks? Rarely, unfortunately. Really? Yeah. They should. I've got to say our banks are lagging behind and they do homegrown training from within, which I think can promote inclusiveness in the bank, but also it prevents people from outside the corporation coming in and giving new blood and new life. Okay, so there is this whole new industry of cyber security that we just touched on. But dealing with the, you know, I can never remember these acronyms, but the Hitech... HTDC. HTDC. You know, it was formed years ago, right actually, you know, by Hannah, to create the kind of industry, eventually, where, as Art was saying, where kids just get hired. There is, in fact, a place for them to go. So has that mission been accomplished? No. I mean, but then why are we doing all of these... We're not doing anything, actually. Really? Right. Well, although you kicked the... You know, remember Act 221, which existed through the first decade of... Well, the tax exemption for Hitech Corporation. It was a tax investment credit, for a fundable credit for the Hitech development. Hitech investment for the Hitech... Industry. Industry. Yeah, we phased it out, yeah. And it was forced to sunset before its sunset date. Linda Lingle pounded on it every day, every week, every year, and blew it up. And in the process, and this has happened in other initiatives in the state, it became toxic. So everybody began to characterize these tech kids, these entrepreneur kids as spoiled, as not going anywhere, as not worth government support and all that. And not only did the statute end prematurely, but people were really, really discouraged. A lot of coders left town in 2010 when the bill was sunsetted before its time. So the reality today, and since then, the ledge has done little or nothing to support technology in Hawaii. That's my opinion. 2010, I mean 2010, not 2010, but 2010. There really hasn't been a real Hitech initiative. None. No. No. No. And if you go back to John Burns... That's amazing for people like me, because John Burns dreamed of this. It's counterintuitive, too, to know that technology is taking over the planet. Yeah, well, it looks like it's working well right here, but you know, I was wondering whether or not any of this, because, well, we still have the high technology park at Kale Holy on the Big Island. Oh, Nelha? Yeah, with the Nelpha. Nelpha. The Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii. Yeah. And isn't that supposed to be some kind of a Hitech? Mostly about energy, but they also do tech. I was out there making a movie late last year, and they're trying to encourage pitchfests. Have Jay received the support that the others have not? No, they do it on their own budget, so to speak. They're a part of D-Bed. Wow. Yeah. So anyway, the problem is that this was all organized from John Burns on forward, including your administration. Right. No, I mean, I created that thing that just you said it was going to be, if the governor signed the bill, it would disappear. So it was a way to deal with the closure of the plantations. It was a way to deal with the fact that we only had one significant economy emerging, namely hotels and hospitality and tourism. It was a way to keep the kids here. It was a way to give them better salaries so that they could better, I should say, compensation. Because a lot of this is about building your own business, rather than being employed, either by the federal or state government or by industry. Well, it's a different kind of world. In fact, even the unionization that went on, one of some of the opposition to some of these things came because people were afraid that they might be a nonunion labor going on. But the unions have evolved to the point that even in Silicon Valley, where they travel, your union membership travels with you as an individual, as opposed to with you as an employee of a company. We're going to see some changes now, I think, because I'm not sure Janice is going to go well for us in the Supreme Court, if you guys keep it up with a case. So that's the case where it's mandatory that you contribute to the union, even though you're not a part of the union. So everybody pays their fair share. But I think with our new conservative-leaning Supreme Court, I think that's going to go away. And I think it's going to dethrone the unions, and we're going to have to make up for it somehow. So I do. I promote entrepreneurship in my students. So they go out and start their own business. Well, also, the fact is that, you know, what is it now? 10 million tourists are coming to Hawaii? I mean, when I was way back in my time, and that was considered some of the boom years, you know, we were barely scratching 7 million. This is, I mean, at what point does the industry just get too big to be, you know, to be viable? Well, the other thing is whether it's really sustainable in the face of it. Yeah, sustainable is a better word than viable. And if things go wrong for any reason, look what happened after 9-11, you know, it collapses on a dime. Or if the United Airlines has a strike like it did, or any of these things can happen. And so I still don't understand why we are going to, in a sense, just seem to be debunking something that actually, an agency that actually brought industry to Hawaii. And this high-tech development corporation thing is really bothering me. So when you were there, you know, what were some of the things that, as chairman of that agency, you feel good about? I'm encouraging entrepreneurship. They're encouraging manufacturing. They were, she had seven or eight programs that were quite active and successful to try to draw people into a tech state of mind. They were supporting tech in every way they could. And of course, it was still a limited budget. In the legal administration, she didn't like to give them a lot of money. They never had a lot of money while I was there. But actually, there should be plenty of money. We should throw money at developing a tech industry because that's where our kids are. If we can get them to stay here, what's that worth? You know, at one time, okay, way back when, and I'm saying this with a bit of pride and a little bit of sadness, I guess, we actually had a policy that we would set aside at least 5% of our budget every year to support innovation and technology. Now, I'm assuming that doesn't exist anymore. Well, the current governor has different priorities for his budget, and those set of signs don't exist. I think we provide... But this governor seems to be very interested in technology. He's interested, but he's not engaged. Really? So he's disengaged, and as a matter of fact, he's cutting funding for a lot of these things that you're talking about. That's really unfortunate. Now, I guess at this point in time, I'm going to take a short... I'm going to have a short break, and we'll be right back to talk about this most interesting story, well, industry. And it's not really making me happy. You need to work on this. Aloha, I'm Richard Concepcion, the host of Hispanic Hawaii. You can watch my show every other Tuesday at 2 p.m. We will bring you entertainment, educational, and also we'll tell you what is happening right here within our community. Think Tech, Hawaii, Aloha. Aloha, I'm Dave Steventh, host of the Cyber Underground. This is where we discuss everything that relates to computers that just kind of scare you out of your mind. So come join us every week here on thinktechawaii.com, 1 p.m. on Friday afternoons, and then you can go see all our episodes on YouTube. Just look up the Cyber Underground on YouTube. All our shows will show up, and please follow us. We're always giving you current, relevant information to protect you. Keepin' you safe. Aloha. Aloha. Welcome back to Talk Story with John Wahee. By the way, if you have a question for our guests, please call us at 808-374-2014. And today we have Dave and Jay, who we're here talking about technology, something that's not normally heard on in the show. But it is our middle name, John. But it does cross over with the topics that we normally talk about, which is politics, and how much we are doing to support the idea of a new industry in Hawaii. Now, but there are good stories going on. I mean, in energy at least. I've heard that, for example, at Keahole, where we were just talking about, they are starting to develop act-workable forms of what they call wave energy, I guess. Wave action generation? Right. Right. That's a solar tube that floats in the water. And as the water comes in and out of the tube, it spins an internal propeller that goes back and forth. And because of that kinetic energy, you're able to draw electricity from that. So is that something that we have a future doing? I don't think so. Or any of this new stuff, because I know they're doing that in Japan. Currently it's a little bit too large and too expensive. They've been talking about that kind of thing for a long time. But the reality is that if you wanted to make money in tech-energy entrepreneurship, you'd be focused around electronics, about information technology, about refining hydrogen. So let's talk about refining hydrogen for a little while. Because that has always been put out as the panacea for the way that we consume, you know, what? Petronium. Well, it's a wonderful concept. It's one of the most abundant elements in the universe. And the byproduct is fresh water. Right. So what a great thing to do. It makes a lot of sense. So are we doing anything with hydrogen? HNEI at the university is working on fuel cells and other hydrogen projects. But they're not nearly ready for prime time. There are people working on electronics for grid connection. That's pretty valuable right now. And just this week they had the Verge, just last week they had the Verge conference in Waikiki where a lot of these guys got together and showed you their new technologies. So explain this, explain this so that... Energy is technology. Yeah, I understand. But explain it so that people who listen to this show would understand it. Okay, well just a small vignette of that is that you have to balance, you know, demand and load. Right. You have the utility with its own grid and you have people who have maybe solar on their roofs. Right, right. And you have to balance it so that you're not wasting anything so that you're most efficient. But isn't that a storage issue? Storage is a big part of that. We had a power outage on the east coast just a few years back because one ballast on an electrical grid blew in Ohio and took down the entire eastern seaboard including Virginia and Washington DC. So it's also a trans... It's an infrastructure problem. We have an entrenched, very old infrastructure in the United States in general. And Hawaii is part of that. So when we add new elements to it, we have to accommodate that. Let me tell you, I was at an energy conference recently and actually I've been going to that thing for years. You know, so I absorb a little bit of all of this. And one of the policy issues that really interests me was the fact that the panelists, actually one of the panelists who at this moment happened to be our newest member of the PUC. Jennifer Potter. I think she's fantastic. I was so impressed by her and her presentation and her credentials and the rest of it. But we were talking about it and in the course of the conversation what I found out was that with all of the solar panels that have been placed on homes in Hawaii that we are actually creating during the daytime something like 500 megawatts of power which is much more than needed just to do the homes. And what was happening then was that the creation of all of this energy was having an impact on Hawaiian Electric which is the monopoly that provides power to most homes in Hawaii and businesses. And Hawaiian Electric has these power generators that have to run at a certain level in order to be efficient. So if they run less than or don't generate what is required somehow that's a bad thing. So they need to be efficient. All of this is interesting and it was interesting to the techie types and the type. The part that bothered me as a matter of public policy which is what I'm interested in was that the solution to this problem the problem of creating too much energy during the daytime and that it would affect how much we would run these generators was to essentially dump it was to say that the energy that came from these homes would no longer be incorporated into the grid that provided electricity. And I thought to myself there's something wrong with that. There's something wrong with that public policy wise when we end up throwing away energy essentially. We don't do that here in Oahu. The only curtailing that's going on now is the neighbor islands for wind. No, I'm talking about for solar. They are building storage systems and the technology we're talking about as technology that could be useful for entrepreneurs make small companies of people here, people Dave trains people who otherwise know about engineering electrical engineering. Those technologies would help make it efficient so that nothing gets dumped. Well, I hope so. But the rule right now the rule right now is that the excess energy is not incorporated into the grid. And the reason for that is because it would seem to me what the rule ought to be and if I was still in a position to call my cabinet together I would have done that that day the rule ought to be how we solve this problem and keep the energy. We're talking about what happens at the homeowner level. If he has all this photovoltaic on his roof and he needs to and what happens and he doesn't have any batteries and he hasn't spent the money for batteries then he can't use it all during the hot sun. What the original plan was that extra energy goes back to the grid and at one point in time it had to be taken back into the grid but now the utility is now able to apparently say, no, I don't want your energy and if you can't store it that's your problem. You're talking about the net energy mirroring Right. What we need to do it seems to me like is find a solution that if you've got 500 megawatts of energy why are we continuing to foster and I guess that was my question You run into another problem here say you wanted to store all that energy we only have a few options available for batteries lead, nickel cadmium and lithium ion that's the only technology and we've been using the same stuff for 30-40 years 100 years actually for some batteries We haven't improved battery technology to keep up with any of our electronic industries and that's one thing that Elon Musk is trying to work out There are batteries available that can store all the energy you're talking about It's just a very expensive business to put them in and it requires technology to balance them as I mentioned so we could do all of this but the homeowners don't want to spend it there's no credit right now they didn't do anything in the legs this year no energy credit for batteries and finally the government rather the utility and the government is really encouraging batteries so it's a problem if you had batteries then all of this would not be a problem I don't know whether the issue is batteries as much and it may be in actuality instead or is the problem storage and in my point of view from a public policy point of view it seems that at any policy justification for it in the immediate zone is any policy that undercuts a different kind of energy is something you've got to look at and as I said if I was there the policy ought to be how do we solve this problem how do we take advantage of the fact that we may have enough energy to light up the whole city being dumped I think they were saying if we had the batteries we could do it when I was talking to this young person the new PEC what was her name again Jennifer Potter and we're talking about these kinds of structural impediments you know and really that this I understand because I think that if nothing else see what apparently was happening is that in effect what we're doing is protecting those generators that burn petroleum we're making sure that they keep being useful and meanwhile we're doing this other way organized batteries all over town batteries are storage that is how you store I think that's how we store it today I don't know if someday somebody is going to in your classrooms going to come up with a new idea wouldn't that be nice but anyway public policy is not following the dream is it we need more progressive minds back to the technology issue public policy there is public policy theoretically to build a tech industry in the state energy is kind of tech to offer the incentives to young people to create businesses and to stay here and make money and this to be a center of technology and energy technology I should say and if our state has a policy like that it's really hard to find it if our state wants to achieve those goals it's the state isn't taking any action to do that and it's regrettable because through your administration through Burns, Arayoshi, you Kaitano and all the way forward until Linda Lingle actually we had the policy and we were taking steps to effectuate it I wanted to get back into this and I think we'll do another program or two on the idea of the intersect between public policy technology and energy thank you very much for listening everybody we stretched it as far as we can go Aloha and see you again at the next talk story with John Wahey