 This is Think Tech Hawaii. Community Matters here. Welcome back to Think Tech Hawaii's Hawaii Food and Farmer series. My name is Stephanie Mock and this will be my last show hosting Hawaii Food and Farmers on my own. We are ending our show on December 5th only because we have so much work to do in the agricultural community and field that we wanted to dedicate more of our time to the field. And I have a very special guest with me today for a show called Elemental Accelerator, innovating from the ground up. And we're joined today by Dania Hakim, who's the Agriculture and Water Portfolio Manager for Elemental Accelerator. I first met Dania at the Hawaii Farm Bureau Farm Fair, which is held by the Hawaii Farm Bureau every year at Kualoa Ranch. And I was at our outreach table for Wahuar Sandy talking to people about conservation planning and business workshops and how farmers can be supported by the community. And through shows like this, and Dania came up to my table and I handed her some, a packet of weird black seeds. And she was, and she was like, what is this? And I was like, oh, this is called Sun Him cover crop seed. And that really started a conversation talking more about her work with Elemental Accelerator and my work with Oahuar C&D and how it's so important for us to really support our local community initiatives so that we can support Hawaii's food and farmers. So I invited Dania here today to talk about her role in agriculture here in Hawaii, but how more globally or broadly Elemental Accelerator is helping startups change the world. So I'd like to extend a warm welcome to Dania. Thank you for joining me. Yeah, thank you so much for having me, especially on your last show on your own. Yes, yeah. You're my pinnacle guest, right? So thank you so much for joining me. I must admit, I've been trying to cultivate this for a while to get you on the show. And you've just been so busy working with Elemental Accelerator and getting out there in the community. I'm thankful that you can spend some time with me here today. Yeah, glad to be here. Yeah, so we're talking a little bit before the show, just getting to know each other a little bit more. And not everyone had that pleasure of seeing you behind the scenes. So I thought we could talk a little bit about you, Dania, as a person. Where are you from? Do you have any experience in agriculture? And basically, how did you get involved with food and farmers? Sure. So it turns out we're from the same place. I know. In Maryland. The best state, right? Of course. After Hawaii. Yeah, of course, after Hawaii. Both grew up in Maryland. I am from the Washington, D.C. area. And schooling-wise, my undergraduate degree is in communications and business management. I actually worked for about five years in storytelling and media. I produced documentary films for National Geographic and Discovery Channel for quite a while, which was a lot of fun. I ended up getting my masters in resource-based conflicts. So I studied conflicts around climate change, drought, deforestation, and how that impacts humans and migration and other violent and nonviolent conflicts. So heavy topics, but actually, funny enough, that's what got me into the food and agriculture space. In my travels with National Geographic and through my research in my master's program, really realized that in these really heavy conflict zones, food is such a connector. It brings people together. It breaks down barriers. It's what people, if you can't speak the same language, if you actually have histories or generations of conflict, you can connect over food. And it really drew me to the issue. The second thing about food and agriculture, it's an issue that we make a decision about, probably three, maybe more, depending on how hungry you are every day. And so it's an issue you can have a really direct impact on in your everyday life, unlike while there's still incredibly important issues, let's say wildlife conservation or drilling in the Arctic, really important, but you're not making a conscious choice. And in that way, you don't have so much direct power over shifting the global food industry or environmental issues. So that's kind of what got me into it. Background in the ag sector, I volunteered a lot of farms growing up. I worked on a farm. And in Hawaii, I actually came to Hawaii to come lead the, co-lead the Hawaii Center for Food Safety, where I was the program director for three years. And that's an advocacy organization that really focuses on education and policy change to really promote alternatives to large scale industrial agriculture. And I also worked for one of our portfolio companies, Canola Cattle. Oh, okay, wow. You have quite the background in agriculture, not only on the East Coast where we're from, but also here too. I really like what you were talking about through your studies, your master's studies, you were discovering this conflict around food and how it can bring people together and really telling the story of food and how that affects civilization and conflict resolution and that kind of thing, bringing that consciousness to our food choices and our agricultural scene. Like you said, people make that choice every day and they don't quite equate it with how that choice can affect food and agriculture on a larger scale. So I think it's really interesting. I really appreciate that you're taking that storytelling aspect and with your background and communications, you're able to better advocate and share that story with others. You know, Think Tech prides itself on being a platform for community voices. You did a great job. Yeah. And you're... Thank you. The studio does a great job and, you know, I think the more advocates and storytellers we can have, not only for food but just sustainability in all sectors is really important. So do you find that your experiences, you know, either on the farm or national geographic, does that translate well with your work with Elemental Accelerator? It does, actually. I've learned a lot. I have a really great network for my work in Hawaii over the past four years, but I will say that Elemental Accelerator, I'll share more. We take a different approach than if we really, I mean, in my opinion, I think to really transform our food system. We need innovation. We also need policy and education. My last role was really focused on policy and education. This role is much more focused on innovation and we also do some policy work as well but really focus in that space. So I'm really in a listening and building phase. I want to learn. I realize that I have a set understanding, but I really want to be open to different perspectives and so that's kind of where I'm at too. It's a great network and a great baseline, but I'm really learning so much in this new role too. Yeah, and that's a great thing about Hawaii agriculture right now, right? We're in this huge transition period from plantation agriculture. I know we've been saying that the past couple of years, but that kind of huge monumental transition is going to take a couple more years, right, and maybe even another decade. We really need as many informed players on the ground and innovators innovating from the ground up, our title today, to really direct that transition in a way that makes sense for Hawaii, but also on a larger scale for the globe. So, you know, listening, advocating is great, but also stepping back and listening to everyone who's out there really working to promote our local food systems here in Hawaii. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I'm going to read some of your National Geographic documentaries and we can show it. Yeah. Do you have any notable titles people should check out or anything you assisted with that maybe you want to call attention to, or just tell me and I'll go watch them. Yeah. It's funny. I worked on a series called Explorer, which is the longest running documentary series on TV. And so that was a much more focused on investigative journalism, and I worked on a series of topics there, the ones that come to mind are so irrelevant to this topic. No, that's okay. It's okay. As we know, everything can be connected in some way, right? Yeah. I suppose so. Even wildlife conservation is important for agriculture. Yeah. One of the series I worked on right towards the end was actually related to my master's education. It was really focused on, it's called Conflict Zone. It was focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Okay. I was trying to tell the individual stories of people, and one of them was actually the story of a Christian farmer in Palestine who's had his water cut off. Oh, wow. Really, like, frequently, and so his ability to grow food, which is really his passion and intention in his livelihood, has been at risk. A lot of the challenges are around water in that area. Not having access to springs in order to feed and grow food and also just to have in the household. I was a really interesting one, but man, we did so many different shows on rock climbers, on volcanoes, on prostitution, on quite a range of content. Yeah, quite the storytelling of the documentarians. National Geographic has quite a range of content, not just lions and tigers. And not just the magazine itself, too. Yeah. Like, it's really spread across media platforms, which I think Think Tech is really working on, too. You know, we're a web show, but how can we extend our network and be on more media facets so that people can have a voice, but also they can hear other people's voices, too. So now you're with Elemental Accelerator, which in my intro, basically the tagline is helping startups change the world one community at a time. And I thought, very briefly before we go to a commercial break, you know, as Elemental Accelerator, a non-profit, is it a business? What is it in itself? Yeah, it's a non-profit. Okay. Yeah. So we've been around since 2011. We were originally founded out of the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative, which was an initiative around 2008 that ultimately has led us to 100 percent renewable energy goal by 2045. And the organization has kind of shifted and molded since then on the way that we give out funding and the kind of services that we provide, but yeah, we are a non-profit. Wonderful. And then, you know, are you supported by local community here, like is your office here in Hawaii? Is it a global office? What does that model look like? Sure. We're based here. Okay. We have about 20, 25 staff. Nice. Good size. Yeah. We have an office in Palo Alto in California, which is a recent addition this past year. Yeah. Wonderful. Okay. Yeah. We have a lot of local partners, businesses and deployment partners we call them, but really partners that work with our companies to do projects. And then we also have lots of connections on the continent, but even more broadly, a really extensive global partner network of corporates that we work with that are interested in potentially an acquisition of our companies, but also in deploying projects with them as well. And those are mostly on the energy side. Our program has traditionally been really focused in energy. About half of our companies that we've funded are in energy. So a lot of the global connections that we have are in energy, but we're really building out in the other sectors. I'm happy to share more, but I know we have... Yeah, we're going to take a quick break. Yeah, commercial break. We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, we're going to see a short video about Elemental Accelerator and their mission, and we're going to talk more to Dania about her work as an Agriculture and Water Portfolio Manager for Elemental Accelerator. We'll be right back. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. When I was growing up, I was among the one in six American kids who struggled with hunger. But with the power of breakfast, the kids in your neighborhood can think big and be more. Go to hungarees.org to make breakfast happen for kids in your neighborhood. If you're not in control of how you see yourself, then who is? Live above the influence. Do you want to be cool? If so, watch my show on Tuesdays at one called Out of the Comfort Zone. I sang this song to you because I think you either are cool or have the potential to be seriously cool, and I want you to come watch my show where I bring in experts who talk all about easy strategies to be healthier, happier, build better relationships, and make your life a success. So come sit with the cool kids at Out of the Comfort Zone on Tuesdays at one. See you there. Welcome back. I hope you enjoyed those short messages. We're joined in the studio with Dania Hakim of Elemental Accelerator. Her role is as Agriculture and Water Portfolio Manager, and we spent the first half of our show talking to her about what her background in agriculture is, and she shared her experiences in communications, media, storytelling, her jobs working on a farm as well. And so the second half of the show, we're going to talk strictly Elemental Accelerator and what she does now in her role and how she helps support startups around the world and builds up our communities one at a time. So we're going to watch a short video that talks about Elemental Accelerator's mission in the world. Here you go. This tree produces seeds from which we extract oil to produce biodiesel. Come in elderly families. We had someone come into our home and we have devices installed that helps us to monitor the use of electricity. Cutting 25 percent off those bills, people were really appreciative. It was awesome to hear that. I feel like we're making a different start small and then people start to catch on and then you get a lot of adopters. Hawaii is 10 years into a 40 year energy transition. In 2045, our lives will be powered by 100 percent clean energy. Just watch that video about Elemental Accelerator. And I want you to talk about, I think it used to be called energy accelerator, right? So, you know, you said that you guys are a nonprofit and you were started in 2011. Is that correct? Yes. OK. Could you talk about why was that nonprofit started? Like, what was the need and how do you guys fulfill that need? Like, why was it created? Absolutely, yes. It used to be called energy accelerator up until last year. OK. We were founded out of the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative. The goal to get to 100 percent, we really need innovation. And we needed to support businesses to help us reach that goal. OK. And why I think we're uniquely important in this like in the innovation sector is that we fund companies up to a million dollars to do projects. OK. That's our sort of bread and butter, although we fund different companies in different ways as well. But we fund them to do projects to really help them commercialize their technologies to get over what we call this commercialization value of death, where you have early product market fit, but you really need to get those commercial contracts. Yeah. And we fund companies that might need a little bit of a longer timeline. They might need funding over a couple of years. And so when we initially started, we provided just the funding and that was that and realized that that wasn't enough. We needed to have additional coaching and resources and provide companies with a broader ecosystem of investors and corporates of mentors and coaches to help them really scale. And we've really built that out since then. Yeah. Building that network and that support system, you know, we always talk a lot about on the show, the funding opportunities for farmers and agriculture here. And, you know, sometimes I think it does get lost in the mix. Like, yeah, I could throw a million dollars at you. But if I don't really coach you on how best to invest that or utilize it for your company, it's kind of a waste of my money and it's kind of a waste of your time because you're not making the smartest choices that you could. And so, you know, so it sounds like Elemental Accelerator, previously Energy Accelerator, you've brought in your scope, it sounds like, to focus on all sectors that impact society, right? So I know you're the Agriculture and Water Portfolio Manager, but Energy, you talked about water transportation as well. And so I was hoping you could talk a little bit about the companies that you worked with specifically. I know you've been in the job maybe a year now, but I think you're drawing on that network and talking about the work that Elemental Accelerator has done specifically with agricultural or water companies here in Hawaii. Sure. So we work with companies in a couple different ways, and I can share an example from each of those. Wonderful. So one is our go-to-market track. That's a little bit of an earlier stage company that really wants to assess product market fit. OK. One of those companies is Kunoa Cattle, which you may have heard of. They are an amazing company that I spent some time working with on working with them, but also helping them. And they are really trying to solve the challenge of, you know, we import all of our beef. If it's grown here, it's imported here after it's been processed. Right. And so they're a vertically integrated cattle company, and they have about 2,000 head of cattle. They operate the largest USDA certified processing facility, and they process about 15,000 pounds of beef a week. Wow. Yeah. I didn't know it was that high. Yeah. It's really, really great. They're doing amazing. There are over 200 stores now and online. I just saw them at the Mana Up event, right? They have their beef bars and their beef jerky, lots of different products now, and we really help them with that, like product market fit work to really build out their business so that they could then get out to all those different stores and really have a clear value proposition. Another company, Teraviva, which you saw on the video, those guys are awesome. We work with them on a demonstration project. So that actually started in 2014. But as you know, trees take a long time to grow and plant. They are really solving a few different challenges. One, we have thousands of acres of degraded agland from sugar and pineapple that we want to. That transition, right? Right. And they're right in that sweet spot of the transition, but they're also solving challenges around feed. So they grow a tree called Pungamia. The seed pod can be used for a biofuel or vegetable oil and also for a livestock feed or meal, vegetable meal. And so obviously biofuels, our aviation industry, is a big challenge. Livestock feeds one of the biggest inputs and costs for ranchers. Extremely costly. Extremely costly. Yeah. So we work with them to plant 200 acres on the north shore of Oahu with Pungamia schools. Wonderful. And actually, interestingly enough, we funded them together on a second project. This sounds like a perfect mix. Yeah, exactly. It's like, this is my next question. I was like, they are working together, right? Right. Actually, so we did a prize. We opened it up to our whole portfolio and actually all of the entrepreneurs in the portfolio chose the proposal that they wanted to win. Oh, OK. And it was a proposal with Kunoa Cattle and Taraviva. Yeah. And it was, as you can imagine, to test the feed with Kunoa Cattle. And so that actually, excitingly, is just in process right now. OK. And so we'll have the results of that early next year. And we're going to have a big party. Yeah. Big, big-ass party. Burger party to follow. So it would be interesting to see the impact that that project can have. That's amazing. And so like, you know, you're talking about creating this network, right? So, and you're part of that network. Are you doing a lot of the, I guess, like innovation or business coaching? Are you helping them get their documents in order and partnerships in order? What, what, and maybe you do all of this too. What, what kind of multiple hats do you wear in your job? So we really build a personalized customized program for each company. OK. So depending on the stage they're at and what they need, we build that program. And then we find the right coaches or experts for them to work with. So it might be stuff that internal to our team we can help with. But we really have, we work with a lot of coaches, one that can be really helpful. We also have a cohort approach to all of our work. So it's really about peer to peer learning. So we bring the companies together frequently. They don't have to be based here. Most of our companies aren't based here. About 10% are, but we bring them to Hawaii or we get them online together to talk and to learn from each other. And so we've found that, yes, we could bring in experts, but many of those guys, while they may be really well known, they were at this 10, 20 years ago where the entrepreneurs are facing these challenges daily, yesterday, today. And so they have the ability to work with each other and help each other. And because we don't take competitive companies in our portfolio, there's a really neat opportunity for them to learn. To really bond across sectors, right? There's so much cross-learning between sectors. That's what's really blown me away about the program and this gathering. So you're talking about this portfolio. How many companies do you typically fund a year? I know you talked about up to a million dollars, but what kind of a portfolio do you have right now or have you had in the past? Sure. So we have 82 companies in our portfolio. Oh, okay. We've funded about 30 million. That's deployed about $30 million in project-based funding. It's actually grant funding to these companies. And we take 15 to 20 a year. Okay. It's our biggest cohort yet with 20. And yeah, we fund, we usually work with the companies from nine months to many years, four or five years. And they're just sort of alumni for life. We have lots of opportunities for our alumni to continue to engage. Yeah, and they've built that network so they can, you know, you guys have helped build that network. So even though they're alumni, they can call on them for assistance, right? It's not like door slam. They never talk to us ever again. Yeah, absolutely not. Wow. Well, you know, I wanna, you know, we're talking about how much you and Elemental Accelerator supports innovation from the ground up. And I was wondering if you had any requests or calls to action that the audience listening today can help, you know, support Elemental Accelerator's mission, but maybe all of those portfolio companies too. Is it checking out your website? What can the audience do to help you guys so that you can help a broader scope of people? Absolutely. So we really take a place-based approach to our work. And so we wanna make sure that we're solving the key challenges here in this place. And Hawaii is our primary place. Is where we're really focused. And so I'm in the building process of this program. We have some amazing companies thus far, but we're really like thinking through what are the key challenges we wanna try to solve. So if you have input on that, if you're a producer, distributor, or you're just a subject matter expert, please reach out. I think my, oh, there it is. My email's on there. You can reach out to me there. If you wanna work with one of our companies, check out our website. If there's a company beyond the two that I mentioned that you wanna work with, reach out as well. We'd love to have that. The companies are always looking for commercial opportunities. Awesome. And then I would say, if you wanna be more involved with our program, we're also always looking for pipeline companies. So for companies that might be of interest. So if you know a great company that you think we should be working with, you can go to our website and refer them on there. And you can also sign up for our newsletter. We host quite a few events throughout the year, both in Hawaii and in California. If you happen to be over there. Yeah. So take a look at that, sign up, and then you can stay in the loop for any upcoming events. All right, wonderful. Thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. We've been joined in the studio today with Dania Hakim, the agriculture and water portfolio manager for Elemental Accelerator. Talking to us about how they help innovate from the ground up and support our local startups and communities. We'll see you next time on Hawaii Food and Farmers. Mahalo.