 We're back, four o'clock, rock, okay, this is the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum with my co-host Sharon Moriwaki. Hi, Sharon. Hello. Nice to see you smiling face. Okay, we have other smiling faces here, we have Lauren Tanakawa, and she is a very important person at, what we used to refer to as the Hawaii Energy Accelerator, but now we're going to refer to it as the Elemental Energy Accelerator, or Elemental Accelerator. Elemental Accelerator, yeah. Welcome to the show. We're going to find out all about that. Okay, Vincent Kimura, and he runs a thing called Smart Yields. We're going to find out exactly how smart the yields are, and how we can, you know, get in on the yields somehow, where he's going, which is global. We're going to find out. He's sitting right here at the table talking to us, happy. Okay, let's begin with you, Lauren. Okay. What's happening? Well, in April, we formed a new partnership with a philanthropic and investment platform called Emerson Collective, and along with that partnership came a name change. We were formerly known as Energy Accelerator, and we've aligned our new name, Elemental Accelerator, with Emerson Collective's initiative for the environment, which is aligning the relationship between humanity and nature, and that's called Emerson Elemental. So to align ourselves, not only within our mission, but also external facing as well, we changed our name to Elemental Accelerator. And that's why we're calling the show, It's Elemental My Dear Watson. Love it. You say, Elemental My Dear Vincent. So how's this going to change things for you? Well, the name also better communicates the work we do beyond energy. We fund companies in water, in agriculture, as well as transportation and cybersecurity. So we've expanded our scope, and we've been expanding our scope for the past couple years. So tell us how you have evolved, your cohorts have evolved, you know? Who's been in your cohort? How many have you had, and where is it going to go now, you think? Sure. We closed applications at the end of May, and so we are currently in due diligence for our sixth cohort. Vincent's a part of our fifth. And each cohort has how many? About 12 to 15 companies. So this year, about 400 companies took the first step to apply. And we're at the end of our due diligence process. We'll have a cohort of about a dozen or so. Did you bring any application forms with you? I did. It's all on mine, ElementalExcelerator.com. Okay. What do you do for your cohorts? I mean, what do you provide for them? What do they provide for you? Yeah. So we provide two primary things for cohorts, one of which is funding, and the other one is relationships and strategic relationships to be more specific. And that's the piece of our program that's highly customized towards each company, because each of them needs something different. So smart yields won't need the same thing as IBIS Networks, which is another one of our local cohort companies. And so we introduce them to people, customers, investors, and strategic partners that can help them scale. That can be really critical. How long is your program? I mean, is it like a year? Or is it six weeks? Or is it forever? Well, companies are portfolio companies forever. We have very long-term relationships with them. On the go-to-market track, the program lasts about eight months or so. That's when you're intensive. Yeah. Yeah, we're working with them pretty intensely on their customer strategies and entering new markets. And on the demonstration side, where we're helping companies deploy projects here, those last somewhere between 12 to 18 months. What happens at the end? Do you get a little certificate with a little frame? Or is that the end? I mean, they have to go and never darken your doorstep again. They're not going to door again. Do they come back? Do you have reunions, for example? Yeah. Well, we do about a bi-annual, what we call a CEO summit, or family reunion, where all of our companies are invited to get together and form relationships across cohort. Because they know each other pretty well within their cohort. They talk to each other during the program. Yeah. Yeah. And they come together about three or four times for three or four weeks in Hawaii and Silicon Valley. And then we also like to connect them across cohort as well. And that's what the CEO summits and family reunions are for. What do they do for you? Ask not what you can do for them. Ask what they can do for you. Yeah. Well, each company donates one to six percent equity back into our nonprofit. And that goes to help find future cohorts. So if they're successful, you're happy. Yes. Yeah. That's how we align ourselves with their success. That's why we're brought in. That's why you want to have reunions too. Yeah. Just to check out. But they also are a big part. Like the portfolio and the cohort is a big part of our program. And we love to see companies collaborate. And the best CEOs are those that form two-way relationships with each other. Great. Successful organization. You guys have grown like topsy and you had great effect. Have you got any national, you know, what do you call it, where they come out, what do you call it, a first offering, what do you call it? Oh, an IPO. IPO. Have you had any IPOs of your cohorts? Tell me now. We haven't had any IPOs, but we did have our first cash exit, which was an acquisition. Last year it was a company called Brightbox Technologies. I heard that name. Yeah, and they were acquired by Next Tracker, which does a lot of tracking. So that's a success. Yeah. That was very exciting. That's great. And you can say, well, I made that happen. I helped them out. I knew that when they were young children, like young pups, they came to me. And I gave them nourishment and ideas and little money. I know. Very creepy. So listen, is that happening for you? Yeah. Yeah, we're really excited. So as Lauren said, we are in the current go-to-market track for the Elemental Accelerator. So we had our big demo day in April. And I can't tell you how they've been really helping us as a part of a growth accelerator model, which is different from some of the other programs that we've been through as well. So it's all about proving your strategy and kind of scaling it beyond just Hawaii. Obviously the Asia-Pacific region is the core for Elemental. So does that appeal to you, actually, Lauren? I mean, to have a global company on your hands. You want them to be global. Yeah. The bigger the better. The more global the better. Mm-hmm. So when he tells you he wants to go global, you think, go for it, yeah. Yeah. We want to help companies scale. Hawaii is sort of protested. Put us on the map. So what kind of company is it exactly? When I say smart yields, I actually think of stock market. You're not the first one, Jay. So we fondly call ourselves Fitbit for Farms or an extension agent in the NAP. And what really we've learned over the last 18 months that we've been hacking away at this in the startup culture is that it's a really big problem and it requires a really big solution. And I think where we started even before we entered in our first accelerator program, Blue Startups, to where we are now, we're in a completely different space. That happens. Yeah, it does. When you get into the creative process, you have to be flexible and instead of going this way, you decide, oh, I think I'll go that way. You know, we didn't know what we didn't know. Yeah, yeah. And thankfully we have programs like the Elemental Program who have been a really blessing, a breath of fresh air for us too because it's all like we trust you. But what are your problems and how can we help you resolve it? You know, as she said, it's very customized. So I have so many questions. Forgive me if I dodged you around here, but so you wake up in the morning and say, I'm troubled. At 3 o'clock at night, I was troubled about something bothering me, some kind of thing that's creating an obstacle for my development of my company. So you call up in the morning and you say, Lauren, I want to tell you how troubled I am. And she answers you, she tells you, is that how it works? Yeah, yeah, kind of like you have a little button and you push it and it's all in the back. It's very nice of you, Lauren. No, but we obviously learn how to handle communications. So we have Warren, who's our coach and he handles the go-to-market track. So we're in constant communications with him. That mean every day? I would say at least once a week. Okay. Yeah, in the beginning, leading up to the interactive week, we were chatting multiple times a week. Example of conversation. You know, what's going on? They help us, you know. They're affirmative. I mean, they're proactive. Very proactive. They say to you, what's going on? They call you up and say, Vincent, we need to know what's going on. Yeah, we had weekly kind of little scrum meetings, video calls, you know, and it was very, you know, whatever's going on, whatever you're thinking about, let's kind of talk about it and, you know, it could be anything. So they're going to put you in touch with experts or just business partners. You know, Lauren mentioned, you know, you're going to give them sort of old-text kind of information and get contacts. But are the contacts experts that you could bring in and house as contractors, or are they business partners you might do business with in Bolivia? It was actually all of the above. So, you know, be it a pitch coach or a story coach, which, you know, they're kind enough to really kind of help us craft messages to the real aspect that I really enjoyed was the peer-to-peer. So a lot of the, you know, other companies doing similar things. And a lot of that, you know, from a mentor perspective, you know, you can have a lot of great folks who've had a lot of good experience. But when you look at, you know, where we are in this day and age and the challenges we're having as, for example, my role as a CEO, business side, it's never better to actually talk to another CEO and just kind of, you know, over a drink or what not, say, hey, I got this problem. You know, what do you think or how have you resolved it? Yeah, I know what happens next because I know Sean will enough to know the question she's going to ask you. Okay, Sharon is going to ask you. I'll leave it to her to ask you, but she is going to ask you. So Vincent, what are your challenges? That's almost what I'm going to ask you. So, you know, the biggest challenge that we see today is how can we really support small farmers? And, you know, to kind of, not to go too much into the market concept, but essentially 570 million farmers in the world and 99% of them are small farmers. So how can you create a technology to appeal to them? And then that obviously is very different. Yeah, it's very different. It's not the typical corn, wheat, soy. You know, you don't have huge mechanized tractors that kind of drive by themselves. You have a very, obviously, a very income contingent, right? You have a lot of challenges with a very diverse crop. And then there's, it's beyond that. It's how you get the harvest to market. It's how you get the commodities in terms of the price point. It's how you pay those farmers. I mean, it's a huge challenge. You're talking about every aspect of agriculture. Yeah. So I'm a farmer in Bolivia. I always pick that country. And I'm having a little trouble. I mean, I need help. And I'd like to take advantage of your technology. And I call you up. I say, Vincent. I say this in Spanish, by the way. See? Vincent, I need help with my farm. It's not going that well. I need to use technology. I need to improve my yields. How can you help me? What can you do? What happens then? So first and foremost, depending on the crop that you're working with, and obviously we have to pick and choose crops that we can actually have experience with. But first and foremost, we don't prescribe that we know how to grow your crops better than you do. But when you talk about pests, when you talk about other factors related to that, that's an area where every farmer will obviously want support on. And it's the data that is really key. And what we've learned is it's not just about showing data on a platform or numbers. It's what you do with that data. It's the insights from that data. And that's the piece where, I would say that the last 18 months, the ah-has have been okay. We have this platform, okay, here we go. We'll show the graphs and the numbers and they're like, well, what do I do? How do I change it? What do I infer? So if you have a pest problem, a bug problem, what everyone does, you know, it's figuring out when those pests migrate. You know, environmental factors. And as a farmer, I wouldn't necessarily know that. I need to have a larger expertise on that. Yeah, yeah. And let's pull it back home a little bit as an example. You have the coffee barrier border field, right? CBB, which obviously also affects a lot of the other, you know, countries that, for example, border you, you know, where you are. And the theory is that CBB migrates based on humidity. But what is that humidity number? So the awareness factor is really key. And then it's about what is the right time to apply your chemicals or pesticides or things like that. So one, you can reduce the risk. You can slow the movement. You have to stop it and slow it. And then you can save in a lot of the costs. Okay. How do you create that data set? I mean, I'm just kind of curious. Exactly. That's my question. Okay. So anyway, how, and where, you know, how big do you go? How small do you go? Is it test or is it, you know, the soil and what kinds of crops? And how do you connect that to your actual constituents? You know, the actual farmer, you can go on on their iPad or iPhone. How do you make that connection or get your base together? Yeah. It's a really challenging subject because there is a lot of data out there. There is. There is a lot of data between, you know, general weather data, or you have some really amazing nonprofit NGO groups like Conservation International that's deployed, you know, thousands of weather stations throughout Africa. The biggest challenge is I agree that data is one platform. So you can see that resolution. Lots of data. Yeah, lots of data. And then the question of the accuracy of the data is the other big thing. How accurate is this? So redundancy and looking at, you know, that data points accurate. Yeah, yeah. So you program a lot of stuff. Well, luckily we have a Justin. So our Justin is our CTO. So he's the programmer. So, you know, it's something that we have to piecemeal and look at all the features and a lot of things we want to do and say, okay, what do we start with? What can we deploy within two, three, four, five months? And what do our customers want? So you want to adapt the program or the modules of the program to the company and to the company's needs. Does the program live on the web or does it live on this fellow's computer in what's the capital of Bolivia? Fold-a-bar. Fold-a-bar. It's in the cloud. It's in the cloud. So you can see it while it's happening. Are you going to, you know, enter data in the other end or is this person going to, you know, have a sort of fixed system that says is it and you just watch without, you know, active participation? That's actually a really big key of what differentiates smart yields from other competitors is the metadata. So, you know, and you can watch a data point go up and down or stay the same, but why is it, why did it do that? And that's the piece on recipes that we're really trying to answer because, for example, you as a farmer in Bolivia, you know, the first and foremost question everyone asks is, you know, what should I grow? You know, are the crops that I'm currently growing that's on my field? Are they the optimal crops to grow? You know, and really it's, how can I change my recipes to fit every single microclip? So you got to keep on putting more data in there. It's just like every Friday you update people with this data. We're going to take a short break, okay? And when we come back, we're going to find out what Lauren thinks of Vincent. Whoa, ready? Okay, we'll be right back after this break. We'll be right back. Well, we're back. We're live. I'm Jay Friedel. This is State Tech here in Hawaii, the state of clean energy with the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum and Sharon Moiwaki, co-chair of that forum and co-host of this show. Hi again, Sharon. Hello. So we have a movie, you know? I mean, we need to sort of refresh when we have this movie. Can we play the movie now and learn more? Of all of the places and all the places in the world of all of the places and all the wonders that she'd seen Hawaii was the most resilient, the most accepting to change. It's real that our convictions lead to innovation, lead to conservation. That technology must serve ecology. You can hear the world breathing. We've now deployed over $20 million to companies and they've gone on to take that funding and raise over $350 million of follow-on funding. We also have implemented over 28 demonstration projects in Hawaii and the Asia Pacific. Nicholas Flanders, co-founder and CEO of Opus 12. Virtually anything that you can make from oil we can make from CO2. We're recreating photosynthesis, but at warp speed. A single unit will have the power of 37,000 trees in the volume of the suitcase. It's a multi-trillion dollar market globally for these energy technologies. Swiftly is a big data platform that analyzes billions of data points to help transit agencies become more efficient. In total we've now launched this platform in 29 cities and we impact 2 million transit riders every single day. We used to leave the BPR marketing at Bidgely. Our system allows their utility to provide insights on their energy clients to reduce the energy bill by a couple hundred dollars each year. We are on our 25th utility in about 12 countries around the world. Terviva is commercializing an oil seed tree crop called Pongamia. Very proud to announce here today we're going to be planting 2,000 acres of Pongamia and we're going to bring 20 jobs back to that particular part of the state. My name is Arcady and I'm here to introduce free wire technologies. We've gone global already with customers such as Vector who's in the crowd and as of this morning we've signed a deal with Dubai, Electricity and Water Authority to scale the product up in the Middle East as well. So at WaterSmart we work with water utilities and help them to better understand and effectively communicate with their customers. WaterSmart now works with 60 water utilities in 12 different states. We could be a part of a paradigm shift from an economy that is fundamentally extractive to one of this circular. Nature figured this out millions of years ago because for our mission of healing and strengthening the symbiosis between humanity and nature, there is not a place on this planet that plays greater host and offers greater evidence that we can succeed than Hawaii. So we're so proud to have the accelerator be at home and then grow that journey find its way across the Pacific and ultimately beyond. Two, one. Okay we're back alive now we're going to have a retrospective of a movie. Lauren what was that movie on about why and what did it include and what was the general purpose of it? Yeah that recapped the week with us and our companies in Silicon Valley. We do this yearly and the week culminates in an event called EX Interactive where this year over 20 of our companies presented to more than 200 investors and strategic partners and corporates and so each of them got up and did a two-minute pit and that was followed by a really nice loire. Yeah, very nice movie well done, high values and Vincent was in the movie. I was I was pitching. How did you like the experience? I was amazing. It was probably one of the hardest pitches I've done especially for an A-list audience. I was 200 people out of it. But you know the shorter ones are always in some respects quite especially since there's no slides and you're just standing there and you've got to really get together. Can't just slap on. So do they ask you questions or it's just a presentation? There's Q and A at the end of every of a group. So what was the most challenging part of that? I knew you'd ask that question. I'd like to challenge it. I said so yeah. You know it was really good. It was very well done. And I'd fortunately done a lot of pitching in the last 18 months. So I both found it very challenging but also very gratifying. It was a lot of fun. You get all the right answers. That's the question that was asked. I knew. That's great. So you like Vincent then? Yeah, Vincent's amazing. So therefore you included him. You don't include everybody who applies for example to be in a cohort. Why did you include Vincent and SmartYields? Yeah we look at a few things when selecting companies a mix of the technology the team and the people involved as well as their fit for this market here because what we do with companies we introduce them to our network here and introduce them to partners and we've found that we provide the most value when they're interested in this market or markets in the Asia Pacific. So you want to encourage companies that are in this market? Yeah, we want to help them start here in scale. Now earlier on you were the energy accelerator so now you're beyond that so what kind of things and you still cover energy of course but what kind of other things suit your fancy? Yeah we're interested in agriculture as well as mobility still transportation solutions as well as cyber security and resilience Oh wow, of course as a release to energy We at ThinkTech are interested in all of those things Send us your tired, huddled masses yearning to be rich Yeah we align in interest categories and then water of course Water of course What a great array of things to do Ultimately they don't have a huge effect on the world actually Yeah we like to think in systems and not just impact one channel of that system So you take the lessons that you've learned in dealing with and helping cohorts in one area and you put them in another area now you can be more general in how you help people And that works for places as well so we take lessons of the work we do here in Hawaii and we're hoping to replicate that in other geographies How do you sleep at night? Don't sleep at night So what do you think of Vincent How's he doing? You treat him in the program, how long ago was it? April That's probably 90 days February was the start of the program How's he been doing? Just between us They've been gaining a bunch of traction They've raised the money and they've gotten accepted into a new program Yeah It's about the program What about that? What program is that? It's Vatican Bless program Vatican Bless program How much detail can you provide? A little bit So we were very, very fortunate so they made a call out to the world and His holiness created what's called Ladato Si The Pope And it's focused on climate change and what we need to do to take care of Mother Earth Of course He'd be all in favor of that He's pretty amazing Amazing to see especially from the different Catholics I've talked to Yes, we're very familiar with that and that's something that I hadn't really known much of So it's a challenge to the entrepreneurial community to take really tough challenges like food and solve that through technology Wow You must be so proud Your aspects are enormous Really enormous Every country, every place Agriculture is always going to be relevant and necessary How do you cope with the other elements of technology For example How do you deal with GMOs and things like that? You know, we have to stay neutral in all aspects and really it comes down to how can we feed the populations Because in our lifetime in the next 30 years we'll have another 3 billion miles So if you think about the 1 billion that are already starving that's a lot of food we need to produce and the only way we can do that is if we switch from international or regional to local growing We all have to grow I can just see the pitch now They say, Vincent, tell us one kind of market you want to serve Well, let's see It's, what, 11 billion, 12 billion 100,000,000,000 100,000,000,000,000 We like that How about the technology You can't follow technology too You can't be static about it I'm a big fan of not reinventing the wheel It's already out there, it's successful Let's integrate that and let's move on So our platform is hardware agnostic We integrate third-party hardware And really it's about data aggregation And what we've learned even more Like I mentioned earlier It's about what you do with that data And how you can put it back And give recommendations to that small farmer So they can collectively in a community work together Especially for non-traditional farmers For development on the farm So you give them advice They're losing farmers until you can make it Much more lucrative Much more exciting for like the students Coming out of school Well, I mean, aside from Bolivia And the Vatican What about Local year In Hawai'i-Nay So we're excited, we're actually going to be at The Urban Gardening Center Workshop On Friday and Saturday this week Talking to small growers And home growers and small farmers And our app is Essentially going to be released to the app store So they'll be able to buy a package And help irrigate Some of their plants What's the name of the app? Don't say smart yields It is So what's smart yields? If I bought it, what do I get? So you essentially get Depends on your conditions And what your crops We don't prescribe a one size fits all But it's really, what do you What kind of farmer are you? What kind of home grower are you? How many plants are you growing? What diversity of crops are you growing? So all those factors And really what kind of pain points do you have? Irrigation or automating irrigation Is a big issue Because if you can keep your plants Your soil moist and alive Then that's a lot of the hurdle What you're looking to is picking what plants grow well In the environments that you have So the awareness factor So maybe you're getting too much sun Or too little sun And that's automatically a failure In terms of the success of the growth of this plant Well Lauren, we're almost out of time Sorry But I would like to offer you the opportunity To kind of make a closing statement On behalf of the Elemental It's elemental my dear Watson Kind of elemental About you know Why of all the cohorts that you have The cohort members that you have Did you select I guess you made the selection Vincent to come down And what do you want people to take away From this discussion about the accelerator And about Vincent Sure So Vincent and SmartYield Is a very interesting technology and team Which is why they're a part of our program And even more interesting than that They not only do work in agriculture But Thinking play space here They also do work in education as well And those two aspects are very important To us Being able to innovate for the here and now But also looking into the future as well And growing the next generation Of innovators I only want to say Vincent That after you've done these big projects ahead of you And you've had an effect On agriculture and therefore humanity In the world I hope you'll come back and talk to us some more Don't be a stranger Yes a challenge about the Vatican Last project Challenge you want to close This is your big opportunity I really appreciate Lauren coming down Finally we get to hear about Elemental Accelerator And also bringing Vincent Thank you Vincent and we look forward To a number of these projects Now So we're propagating quite a lot Of interest in the world Not only in energy but beyond So we appreciate that So thank you very much And keep the work going forward We look forward to hearing more about you All right it's Elemental my dear Watson Thank you so much you guys Have a great discussion Thanks for having me