 Hello, hi, how are you doing? Welcome to you like to talk Gordo the tanks are here. I'm here with my good old buddy And to the security guy everybody and we have two guests today. We have a Vince Kimura, this is Kimura. Hi. Hi. Yeah, and this is the co-founder and CEO of Smart eels. This has to do with farming not to do with not money not invest in yes, correct It's to do with farming. We'll get we'll get in we'll get into that So grab yourself a chair and grab yourself a libation enjoy this water and that's some water with us Also, we had scotch in these ones. We did what happened. Well, what can I say? We got broke And we also your chief agricultural officer will be on yep Michaels here Michael Michael Rogers to be on so it's the first C AO I've ever we have a CAO chief agricultural officer I Have a lot of CIOs. Yeah, that means career is over or change in occupancy Change in occupation those CAO. I might be a safer facility So then we have some fun stuff. So we'll switch up at at halftime and Angus is here doing some silliness. I'm sure anyway You know got one tech job I think one today if it's you know, you live in a bad district when someone takes the wheels off your shopping cart And puts it up on blocks Nice, where do you find that I know I got it sent to me. I said, I just love it. No, it's terrific The effort that went on to that one to do that one. It's class be good. So yeah, so that's that's what I have And I got a little I got a little bit of news as well, but my news is going to relate it to it's not thematic this time Like it normally is normally we try to keep everything along the theme But fortunately because you were gracious enough to come in at last minute to be our guest today We truly appreciate it. But before I get into this wait, tell us a little bit about yourself Sure, sure. So born in Hawaii, but raised in Asia most my life. Okay school in Oregon Oregon State. Go Beves. Oh Yeah, oh no And that'll be the show today Thanks for having me on the show But no, but you know majored in environmental science, so my focus was on sustainability Okay, and the idea really was to kind of take technology and improve the way we've been doing things Especially in agriculture. Yeah. Oh, so okay. So what was that major again environmental environmental sciences environmental sciences? So and so you've you you went to high school here. No, I lived in Asia most my life Oh, we're about all over Beijing Hong Kong Malaysia, Singapore Military fathers and hotels. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh awesome. Well, that's that would a great way that well I'm ready came back here to work on egg here Working on egg there, I know it's got some really cool Cool technology Just a little bit and you don't have quite as much land as they do you've seen maps. I'm sure I have seen We need to hire you and I can't and I you know, we had a GIS lady on here before Tina Yeah, and so she taught me all about maps. Yep, so we had her on before so anyway So we'll get into your technology, but I wanted to talk about news right little bit of news that's happening And so, you know a lot happening in health care lately, so I'm gonna start focusing a little bit more in health care What's going on in the healthcare side so? June was the worst ever For hacking in health care. Oh ransomware ransomware whatever there was a a total of 11 million patient records act in June allow just in June just in June from also from one I think it was one. Yeah was the big who was the one one one biggie. So but that so DHHS Department of Health and Human Services are giving out a number of I'd you know Recommendations and ideas and things for watch to watch for so I would encourage our viewers to go You know go to their website and they've got a lot of good information out there But it's interesting in those 11 million records that were that were hacked over the past Month that 41.4% were hacking 41.4 another 41.4% were actually Involved insider wrongdoing someone on the inside does something wrong which kind of interesting so that's you know 5050 and then the other one was involved 17.2% is all involved in theft for someone stole a laptop or stole Computer and so on so again is it that insider thing and we need to talk about you know educating your employees You know watching out what's the phrase you use if you see something say something those kinds of things Yeah, that and I mean I think a lot of this is targeted sort like spearfishing exercises You know because imagine it is easy to take care like take advantage of a doctor or surgeon for example Because you know they need to respond and they want to respond so you know if you can spearfish messages to them that they That they either click on to get the information or forward out or respond to right and bring malware into an organization I think they're vulnerable because of that because they have a high response rate, right? Because they're trying to take care of their patients. So right they got to pay attention You know I got this you know Shout out to how all agree be another entrepreneur like yourself. We was on one of our first shows Who gave me this information because he's doing that pow box stuff and his encrypted email and the equipment document Encrypted document management to help in this space. So it's really cool. So that's mine That's all I got for news today because I want to jump back. Let's talk egg So let's talk eggs. So so tell us about what it is you have what it is I want to find out first how you decided environmental science. Yeah interesting interesting to you know pick that Major because you're not a not a old guy young guy. So so how did it? How did it? How did you say I know young farmers? Huh? My wife was a young farmer of America. Okay. Okay. Go ahead. Yeah No, you know at the time when I went to school. It was definitely not becoming industry You know the idea was you know focusing on sustainability focusing on looking at besides just profit But looking at you know the hospital planet side of the people planet profit and really focusing that As you've seen in kind of other tech industries be it MIS and whatnot. It's kind of this middle-ware Area where it's not science completely science-based and not completely business-based. We're right in the middle Yeah, so then difficult a lot of variables environmental variables, right? Like right is the thing about and it's sustainable science. I mean we need that big time I don't think we've had anybody here that focuses on You know This is the first so so so so tell us about what it is you're doing because you start up you came up with this idea Yeah, we only get Vincent for a hatch There you go. Yeah, so no really it comes down to pain points. So we're talking to farmers hearing their issues I mean be it from you name it, you know But but really it's it's figuring out kind of how we can support them using technology and Being that you know, basically I had worked in big businesses and big KPMG's and the consultants of the world right and seeing kind of the best Practices of how things are run and then when I did my MBA looking at okay from the entrepreneurship side, you know from a global perspective Really what kind of what can you do technology wise to impact the world and Hawaii? We have an amazing advantage here, you know beyond anyone else, you know We have 10 of the 14 known climates right in these islands We have more microclimates in anywhere else in the world right we have every single renewable energy known to man known on this planet here Okay, and we should really be the ag tech data hub, you know, we should be one of the global years And we are really that CTAR has done an amazing job, you know the extension agents. They're a big shot I see stars in or the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources Okay, so they're the ag side for the University of Hawaii system And so they do an amazing job there there folks there are cutting-edge But really what it is is how can they support the small to medium-sized farmers, right? So in Hawaii night 97% of the farmers here are small to medium-sized Okay, and that's based on acreage and that's based on acreage Which is that which would be an average acreage size I would say somewhere between one to five acres one to five. Actually the global average two acres. Wow Yeah, the global average. Yeah, so you go in the big island because I live in my man Yeah, it's all smart for oh, they're all one to five acre farmers. That's all they are Many many many of them and I want to introduce them to you and your product because I think you're cool Yeah, so talk about your product. What are you doing? Well, so, you know just another comment, too 99% of the world's farmers are small to medium-sized Okay, so you see this trend here like what we see in Hawaii is what we see in California What we see around the world is that basically small farmers don't have access to huge teams, right? They don't have access to plant scientists. They don't have access to soil scientists They don't have access to all these different areas that the larger farmers do on their staff And so what what it entails is when they have issues they go to the extension agents They'll be local, you know Universities colleges in the area to say hey, I got this problem So as I go to a doctor and saying hey got this problem. What do I do? Right, you know, and of course the doctors like well, let me do a blood blood test Let me do an MRI cat scan, but in agriculture It's not there and there and and I guess the small guy would be more reactive than proactive As opposed to the larger The larger ones they've already got like you said they got them the scientists and everything on board And so they're already looking at the soils. They're looking at the waterfall the rainfall They're primarily growing like corn and things like so they're they're using in Santo and Pioneer and all those guys that are Planning crops for them basic genetic based. I mean they have a lot of those larger guys have a lot of tools Sure, they have a ton of tools at their disposal and really the small guys don't yeah He's reacting to a bad Oh my garden's gone back. So yeah, you know, it's late. He found out. Yeah. He's already lost a crop or so Yeah, and the big guys got airplanes. Yeah, you know, they got the drones Yeah, they got all the satellite images. They got the satellite imagery, you know, and the small guy There's no way they can afford that. You know, it's funny because we all think oh satellites are great But one pixel on your screen is equivalent to 30,000 corn plants Wow Wow, that is really do yeah for a small farmer, right? I mean it's it's not even a blip on a blip, right? So what do they do? Well, unfortunately, you know unfortunately farmers kind of you know, they they they have years of experience or generations that matter, right? And then I'll see they kind of go with her gut, you know Oh, one of these things, you know, and God bless them. They do a great job But really we need to give them data science. We need to give them the tools to make those decisions You know the simple of when to water and how much to water right when to add nutrients, right? And all those things, you know based on what is transpiring in the environment I know and I never thought of it, but think you're right. So that when do I when do I when do I you know fertilize? How much do I fertilize? Sorry to catch up. I think that the environment's been crazy a lot people say oh, it's getting hotter or it's you know Remember like the summer here was hot and the summer here was cold and it rained all one summer So it changed it seems to be changing more than it used to a little more variability in the environment Which that the guy who was just using his gut check or using history He's suffering and when the environment's not doing what it usually does, right? Yeah, so you have you have your developed technologies that are that analyze the soil that you know alert farmers to what's going on Those kind of things. Yeah. Yeah So we are hardware agnostic which means that we work with pretty much most of the hardware providers out there And so we're a data company and that's what we focus on so software software And you gather the data from all the different sensors that you can buy from all the different Agricultural companies correct So we're slowly integrating based on what the farmers have told us what they're using And really the biggest challenge we see is vetting those hardware manufacturers Okay, they're in the sensors vetting all this information because one you can install it But then if it breaks in three weeks, then well, that's kind of silly. Yeah, so a lot of that kind of you know I guess bulletproofing is really what we're looking for So are you they're pulling data off and sending it to you or there you're they're sending it up to the cloud How is it the cloud awesome? Yeah, so really what we're focusing on. Yeah. Yeah, I think so, you know We're very fortunate. We've got a great team So our CTO is basically a PhD in while a sensor design and deployment He wants on some pretty amazing sensor stuff for like particle accelerator stuff I mean really way beyond me our chief software engineer is basically a phenomenal younger guy who's Basically design this mobile software for us and really it's all about scalability So compared to some of our competitors that really started maybe three or five years ago It's a completely from ballgame and you guys know this from a technical side It's all about how can you utilize what's already out there and not build it from you know My generation when we went to school is like, oh, you've got to do HTML and all this coding stuff Well, that's that's be honest now. I mean, that's you're just taking the data Getting extracted, but it's all in different formats And then you've got to take it and digest it and all do those things and put in a way that I Is the farmer can read it and understand that's the that's the kicker right there And so when we started this project through blue startups So we went through their accelerator program very fortunate had been accepted and actually the first ag tech company And and really it was it was what can we what can we learn from this? How can we fail fast because you know, we're trying to create the secret sauce, right? So we started with our version one and we learned that you know farmers, you know, generally It's like they you know if they're looking at charts and numbers and whatnot that doesn't really add value to them You know, so they need this view on this they need something kind of like a Fitbit for their farm Okay, yeah fit bit for a farm. Oh, I like that fit bit for the farm Okay, we're gonna have to take a pause break and we're gonna swap you out for for Michael Rodgers I like that for your farm anyway, Vince. Thank you so much for joining us We give every every one of our guests a autograph solo cup. Oh, I appreciate you get a number 77 a So you get 77 a so thanks, we're gonna get we're gonna get Angus We're gonna get Mike Rogers to come on and talk about how the farmer can use all this great technology. Thanks so much Aloha, I'm Chantel Seville host of the Savvy Chick show on think tech Hawaii and I'm going on tour I'm taking you around the world. We're going to Canada and then we're going to well We're in America then we're going to San Francisco. So keep staying tuned 11 a.m. Every Wednesday on the Savvy Chick show We'll see you next time Hi, I'm Ethan Allen host of likeable science on think tech Hawaii I hope you'll join me each Friday afternoon as we explore the amazing world of science We bring on interesting guests scientists from all walks of life from all walks of science to talk about the work They do why they do it and more or why it's interesting to you What the science really means to your life? It's impacts on you how it's shaping the world around you and why you should care about it I do hope to join me every Friday at 2 p.m. For likeable science Hi, my name is justini spirits you this is my co-host Matthew Johnson every Thursday at 4 p.m We host the Hawaii food and farmer series This is the place you can come to for insight on the perspective and history and passions of Hawaii's farmers and all folks involved in Hawaii's local food system What kind of folks we have on so we have everyone from local farmers. We have foodies chefs We also have journalists Researchers anyone who's actually working to help make Hawaii's local food system that much better so join us every Thursday and Tweet in us and ask us some questions and leave your comments as well Hey, Aloha, and welcome back to about you talk. We got Angus. We drug him in off the beach And I think it's time to hear what he's got going on Angus. How you doing, buddy? Hey, good to see you back. Hey, Michael. Nice to see you lad. Hey, how's it going good? I was picking me potatoes yesterday. I'll be my man. We got a week. I got six whole potatoes yesterday Huge crop coming in right on big crop coming in anyway We're gonna keep you on your scratch where the week lad. So you're ready Try on guys word of the day. There it goes. It's going to be what is it? Hey, sir back. All right. It could mean scratch my back It could mean return soon, but it could be hurry up. I think hurry up wrong It's about damn time you got one right Well, nice try anyway for once I beat you anyway, we'll try we'll try anyway I got a weed gadget and it's kind of thematic. It's uh, it's this cool way to charge your iPhone with fire What? Yeah, it's an evil thing is it's called. It's a bio light You know, you can be you can go to the farm still someone's food Cook it on your little you know, you little your little fireplace that and then charge up your phone at the same time Okay, I like that. Here's something you think about the farmers were out there, right? And they're reading the sensors You know if their batteries get low, they could just start a little we fire and charge up the battery How much is it a hundred seventy nine dollars? What not that? Whoa? Home, but I have was a pizza oven. That's even more fun Anyway, that's my gadget for the week and remember everybody let your wing gang free wherever you be. Hello I guess thanks for that. So cool little gadget and I feel another word of the day I think we're gonna go to the security minute now, which I've got an update for you on some drone We talked about some drone technology previously DJI who makes a lot of these drones put out a software update This week So a lot of the previous stones drones could launch in areas where they weren't supposed to and now they've got a geo fencing built into This new this latest version of their app so that you know if you've got the drone and you There are ways you can unlock this feature, but you need to register to unlock it So that the FA know that you did Otherwise, this will keep you from flying in an area where you're not supposed to fly Oh, so it keeps these hobbyists from doing things wrong. We could hurt somebody else So my only point was if you've got iPhone Android based versions of DJI software go update them today All right, that's my safety. We got Mike Rogers here talk a little more ag tech. Yeah, Mike. Welcome Nice to have your board. So Again our first chief Agricultural CAO. How'd you cover that? Is it popular in farming? We actually have to look it up For a title that would fit an agricultural person and then a technological company right on. Yeah, so where did you go to school? Where'd you grow up? Well, I was born in Japan. I'm grow I grew up moving back and forth between Japan and Hawaii. Okay. I went to mid-Pacific Institute for high school Oh One of my favorite schools of all the schools here in town. It's a great school. It's awesome Yeah, I love it and then I went to University of Hawaii and studied at C-TAR and we just mentioned right and got a degree from there in tropical plants and soil sciences Tropical plants and soil sizes. So so so how did you guys meet? So you just went straight started farming was that you know, was that a goal? No, actually Out of high school what I did was I bounced around a couple different careers And this is my third career that I ended up in and my first two careers were in gaming and gemstones Oh, I was a gem dealer in my last career and through those different careers I kind of get got an understanding and appreciation for for the environment and also Agriculture in the third world I spent a lot of time in the third world and then I grew a passion in agriculture and sustainability And then here I am now and it came out and so then you hooked up with Vince That's right And you guys said okay, we've got a you need you gotta go way to help the smaller farmer Yeah, that's right. And like you said 90 so much percent of the farmers in the world are small Yeah, yeah, in fact, you know the drone technology just showed that's technology that actually big agriculture is used today They have drones that fly over crops Through a pattern that is pre-programmed that they come back to your charging station on its own And that's kind of technology that you don't see in small farms because you know that we don't they don't have that kind of Understanding or or even the the financial power to bring in that kind of technology into small scale Yeah, I've got to imagine small farmers got enough on their plate Oh, yeah get the stuff out of the you know in the ground and then out of the ground let alone Trying to learn technology and all those kinds of things hard work So you so you're out pounding the pound and not the pavement because it's gag So you're a pound of the pavement talking to the small farmers and saying how can we help you and such? That's right We're trying to create a solution that works for that, you know We want to make a for us by a solution for for agriculture, okay? So what's the biggest pain point that they have in Hawaii? I mean it's a good growing season here They can grow here around there's a few advantages, but what what's the biggest pain point? There are a couple things one is definitely tests and diseases, you know while in the mainland there's winter So all the insects basically die off or we're going hibernation, right? But in Hawaii they can reproduce all year round So that kind of thing never goes away, and it's always an issue in disease pressure It's huge in Hawaii, right, and is it does it impact yield? I mean is it a definitely? Okay, so there's so there's you know I'm thinking that they had trouble with be might for the bees and taking care of the me bees We've got this oh, he had sudden death that's going on now in the big island and just out of nowhere coffee There's coffee berry borer. Okay, that's right depending on the types of pests and diseases or pathogens We can track the movement of these pathogens or pests according to environmental conditions So I'll say coffee berry borer they like certain types of conditions like humidity and temperature and as that condition goes up The hill and down the hill you can see a movement of these of these diseases and pests now because you've got sensors in the ground that are That are sensing them walking by like oh, it's a pitter patter So so it's you just know by they you know by the instinctive self or what's happening with the crop It's kind of an indirect way of figuring out how movements of these things happen Wow, so so you got a lot of this technology deployed a number of farms here in Hawaii We have seven farms that we've deployed our sensors at and so far so good. We're getting a lot of feedback We're still going through our beta testing with our technology So we're learning a lot and we're building a platform that works for everybody So do you think will it help also with watering? I mean what other what are they expected impacts from the you know The data that you gather what are the what are the kind of feedback that you're given to the small farmers today that they weren't getting before Yeah, so in agriculture There's a lot of guesswork and a lot of the inefficiencies as far as whether it be watering or fertilizing or even a pesticides application For example, if there's a leakage in an irrigation at some point on the other side of the farm There's less water being being applied to your crops than this side of the farm And you can't see that until a couple of weeks later And then you find out that those crops are not doing well and then you go in troubleshoot Well, what we do is we give live data so that farmers can make decisions on that day and troubleshoot everything You could they get a sense that says wait this you know this area hasn't gotten hasn't Irrigated to the other way back if you just watched it, you wouldn't know Five acres I mean yeah, I get five acres just you say a small but five acres is it's a lot It's a lot of areas of 40,000 square feet an acre right something like that So that's a lot. That's a lot to cover. Oh, yeah, even though it is it is small So so where do you see this where you guys headed? What's here? What's happening with what you're doing now with the technology? So are you looking for funding or can you talk about that or you know? So you're looking for funding We're you know, we're coming up to our second round of funding and yes, we are definitely looking for funding Say that say that right there to the camera Yes, we are looking for funding there agriculture technology to make the world a better place, right? Actually, yeah, but give it now. It's smart eels comm smart. You go and check it out It is really cool and come to good videos in there, too I mean, you know this we have limited limited resources here obviously And so and apparently we have all the climates we have ways to take advantage of and leverage it But we need science to help us with that right and we want farmers to farm Farmers to stick to their jobs and and take care of their crops and we don't want to have to we don't want them to have To go on the online and do research on technology and figuring out what to buy or why not to buy We want to help them with that process. Well, I mentioned that if they start getting all that data and start doing You know analytics and whether they're doing the analytics or someone's doing that doing the analytics for them That you can start saying, you know, we this is happening when you're doing this kind of fertilizer at these these times of the season and so on so I'm just thinking away man all those small farmers up there and they're growing everything you think of I keep thinking of like nitrogen levels Like you mentioned water levels, you know, how do they because you're obviously testing the soil for them to make sure that it's optimal for growing what they grow And that's different I know they don't they rotate crops in some places to put more stuff in the ground so that the next year I know there's a lot of there's a lot of science to it I know there's a lot of science and there's a lot of experience behind it a lot of these farmers have been doing farming for decades and and And it's great experience and they're doing great work But climate is changing things are changing crops are changing people's needs are changing right so in order to adapt to all those changes You want to have technology there to help you support do that? Well, speaking of changing crops and one of the guys on the big I gotta try and hook up with him. He's I heard yesterday. He's gonna start growing hops Because here yeah for beer actually for the big lion hop for the big island brew house And they're gonna they're gonna look at this idea of growing local growing hops for the beers that they're going to be Producing on the big out and the big on a brew house. They won another award Last week for one of their one of their beers So be kind of a cool thing with local farm right there your local farmer young like you guys so yeah young guys So but it gets second generation or third generation. So it's been handed down another crop You have the medic marijuana guys giving you guys a call yet. Oh, yeah, you know, yeah, they want to hire you Big deals exactly we do want to focus on high value crops to begin with right because they can invest more money per Square foot of their growing facility. So cannabis is way up there We're definitely focused on cannabis out there. We're focusing also on coffee and well I mean, we're not we're not counting anybody out at this point right but in order for us to drive our technology and and those people have the biggest needs for for Sensoring and and keeping track of what's going on in their farm, especially for hydroponic application hydroponics and aquaponics When plants are growing just in water, there is no buffer for for environmental changes, right? You know if it's in soil, yeah, you know, there's over watering or what not there's buffer that the soil provides But when you're in water Any change any minute change that happens in water directly affects the plants by the way This is cool. Well, you're not going to believe this but we have burned through Another half hour show that fast. That's how fast it goes real quick smarter use how much more if I've got some good technology What's my percentage of yield that I could expect to increase you got a ballpark for me? you know There are different nursery growers that grow a lot of different ornamental crops and there has been some work done with nutrients and different types of management by Closely monitoring what happens to to the pot of plants and they've increased their yield by a hundred percent. Oh Think of that. That's awesome. That's awesome. That's smarter use anyway So this is up in Hibachi talk on think tech We've had our guests out here visit Kimura and Michael Rogers here From a smart yields check out their website. I'm serious. They got some cool stuff Send them some money and to invest in Hawaii and as we do with all of our guests We give it a lot of you get the beacup 77b so it's all there so anyway as we say at the end of the show to all of our No, thank you. Sorry. Thank you. Nick and thank everybody who saw me is to get this together But if we say at the end of the show one two three, how you doing?