 Well, aloha everybody, one day left in February and I'm Mitch Ewan, the host of Hawaii, the State of Clean Energy. And speaking of clean energy, we're lucky to have Shannon Tangadon from Hawaii Electric who's going to tell us what the real state of clean energy is here in Hawaii. So Shannon, off you go. Hi Mitch. Well, we're proud to announce that we achieved, the Hawaiian Electric companies achieved 27% renewable portfolio standard. Awesome. So we're at 27% RPS. We held steady from 2017, despite the loss of our geothermal resource on the Big Island. So if we had the geothermal resource, how much about how much would we have had? We would have been at 29% consolidated. Awesome. Yeah. Great. So we achieved 44% and it's down because they lost Pune Geothermal Venture, PGV. We had Maui which was up 38% and Oahu 22%. Very good, yeah. All the numbers went up despite the loss of a huge resource. Yeah. It really has a big effect. I have a serious electrolyzer over on the Big Island and I take my energy from Helco on the grid, but during the day when it's bright and sunny, it's like I was told it's about 83% renewable when all the sun kicks in and the geothermal plant, but that all went down to about 50% when the sun is shining and everything is kicking over with the loss of the geothermal plant. Yeah. Big hit. Big hit, but they're planning to get back online at some point. We just have to wait and see. But it also signifies how important it is to have a diversified portfolio of resources. Can't have all your eggs in one basket. No, you can't. Exactly, yeah. So we need to just make sure that we have a very diverse portfolio, whether it's solar plus storage, wind, geothermal. I think we just need to be open to all the different resources that will come online in the near future. Okay. So last time we were on the show, you were talking about your guys that went over to help the people in California. What's the status there? Are they back? Oh yeah, they've been back for a while. They stayed for about three weeks and then, you know, they were helping out following the campfire. Yeah. So they've been back and we're lucky to have them because they learn, you know, new skills. It was a new environment, you know, so it was great to have them there supporting Jeannie. Yeah, lots of experience looking at what happens when your grid goes down. So of course we had our own challenges over in the big island when the, you know, the geothermal eruption and everything else like that. Definitely, definitely. There's a lot going on. You know, and we also want to emphasize that, you know, just a decade ago, we were at 9% RPS and to jump from that to 27%, I think we're, you know, we're moving along. We're building momentum and we're on track to meet our 30% in 2020. So quick math, that's like about 200% improvement, correct? Yeah. Definitely. 29 is like... I'll let you do the math. Yeah, I think it's 200%. So that's really, really good. Yeah. Very good. Thank you. Okay, well... Thanks for having us. So we're going to take a short break right now. I've got a cast of thousands today on the, you know, after Shannon's leaves us. So we're going to cut to a break right now so we can get this board and multitude all mic'd up and ready to go. Okay, Shannon, thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah, good work. Keep it up. Thanks. Hey, loha. My name is Andrew Lanning. I'm the host of Security Matters Hawaii airing every Wednesday here on ThinkTech Hawaii live from the studios. I'll bring you guests. I'll bring you information about the things in security that matter to keeping you safe, your co-workers safe, your family safe, to keep our community safe. We want to teach you about those things in our industry that, you know, may be a little outside of your experience. So please join me because Security Matters, aloha. Hi, I'm Rusty Komori, host of Beyond the Lines on ThinkTech Hawaii. My show is based on my book also titled Beyond the Lines, and it's about creating a superior culture of excellence, leadership, and finding greatness. I interview guests who are successful in business, sports, and life, which is sure to inspire you in finding your greatness. Join me every Monday as we go Beyond the Lines at 11 a.m. Aloha. Aloha, and welcome to At the Crossroads. I'm your host, Keisha King. You can catch me every Wednesday, alive at five. I'll see you there. Aloha. This is Winston Welch. I am your host of Out and About, where every other week, Mondays at 3, we explore a variety of topics in our city, state, nation, and world, and events, organizations, the people that fuel them. It's a really interesting show. We welcome you to tune in, and we welcome your suggestions for shows. You got a lot of them out there, and we have an awesome studio here where we can get your ideas out as well. So I look forward to you tuning in every other week, where we've got some great guests and great topics. You're going to learn a lot. You're going to come away inspired like I do. So I'll see you every other week here at 3 o'clock on Monday afternoon. Aloha. Aloha, and mabuhay. My name is Amy Ortega Anderson, inviting you to join us every Tuesday here on Pinoy Power, Hawaii with Think Tech, Hawaii. We come to your home at 12 noon every Tuesday. We invite you to listen, watch for our mission of empowerment. We aim to enrich, enlighten, educate, entertain, and we hope to empower. Again, maraming, salamat po, mabuhay, and aloha. Well, hello, we're back after a quick change during the break. I'm really pleased to have AccelerateUH here and their head guy, Omar Sultan here and his team and he's brought two leaders of their cohorts. So first of all, I want to introduce Omar, and second is Tom Knapp-Ramos. And Tom is the founder of Swipe Wrap, and we're going to hear all about whatever that means as we proceed on. And we also have Alberto Gonzalez who's the co-founder of RandeVue, Vue with a V. So welcome on board and we'll start off with Omar because I really wanted the people out there to know a lot about AccelerateUH. So go ahead and give us an outline. What is AccelerateUH? What do you do and how do you do it? So AccelerateUH, first of all, thanks for having us on the show, Mitch. Always great to catch up with you and talk story. So AccelerateUH is the University of Hawaii's venture accelerator. We formed it back in 2014 as a public-private partnership between Sultan Ventures, our venture firm and the University of Hawaii. The whole goal there is to create a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship, figure out ways that we can take all of that exciting research and talent that's happening and available at the university and spin it out into new companies to better our local ecosystem and, of course, the economy. So I always get confused about what does ecosystem mean and what does AccelerateUH mean? It's kind of a buzzword that's used in your industry, but just for the simple layman out there, why don't you tell us what that kind of means? AccelerateUH is a very simple way of thinking about it. It has a specific start date and a specific end date. And in between, you're providing these young startups with capital, with mentorship, with guidance, and really kind of help accelerate the growth of their business, whatever it is. So launch them from the edge of the valley of death, through the valley of death, and then up the other side to where they're all big tycoons smoking big cigars, correct? That's the idea. If they want to do that. Yeah. I'm a graduate of the course. And I can tell you it's a great course. And I can't say enough about how much help it helped me. And so I want to now break, turn over to Tom. Tom, tell us about your company and a little bit of your experience in AccelerateUH. I see you're wearing one of the Accelerate shirts. That's great. Yep. Got a rep. With pride. It's the uniform, right? Yeah. So a little bit about SwipeRap. So my company, what I do is I actually bring the, you know, when you like send a gift to someone, like you typically, you buy wrapping paper and you wrap it and put a card in a bow. Anything, like all those things just to make that gift personal, right? And then you have that suspense and excitement when you like open your gift. So I'm trying to bring that same exact like suspense and excitement to digital gifting. So I literally have like when you send a digital gift, like before you open it, you actually like interact with an interactive 3D gift box that you actually like unwrap on your phone before you reveal your gift. Oh, good. Yeah. So I'm bringing that same fun and personal experience of physical gifting to the digital world. And how far along are you with getting your software, your product built? Yeah. I have a beta version out on the web. You can actually like go there and I actually do sell like a gift card on my website. But yeah, it's still early beta version. Right. So I'm figuring out kinks and stuff like that, but it's live. Yeah. Wipewrap.com. So one of the first things they teach or accelerate UH is actually go out and ask potential customers if they want them. So it's not like just you thinking this is the best idea in the whole world. So what's been your experience, Tom? Yeah. So my company, I actually started originally at the 2017 pay summer launch pad at UH Manoa. We had a different idea before and pivoted to swipewrap. So but during that time we actually went out and we act, we had to interview people. And when I made kind of this pivot, I was like, I thought like, oh, wow, I'm, you know, I've never heard of digital gift wrap before. It was just an idea combined with several other ideas. And the very first, like the very first person I talked to, I asked, Hey, you know, would you be willing to wrap a digital gift? And they said, yeah, and I would do it for a couple bucks. And it was, it was a very interesting experience. But moving forward, I also did the business plan competition at UH. During that time, I also actually interned at Sultan Ventures. So I got to learn like a lot from the investor perspective about like the startup world of the ecosystem. And as an entrepreneur, it's good to have perspectives from everyone's point of view, like your customer's point of view, you know, well, obviously your point of view and all your investor's point of view is all the stakeholders involved in the idea. So they really advocate for that. Okay. Yeah. Good. So Alberto, give you some equal time here. Tell us about your company and your experience with XLR at UH. Yeah, sure. So we are working in rendezvous. We are basically a collaboration platform. The difference between us and most of other collaboration platforms is basically that everybody is able to control the screen. So if you're used to any other collaboration platform and you're collaborating with somebody else, you're always sharing the screen together. Our tool basically allows you to interact with all the content together. So when you say you're collaborating, I mean, do you see the other guy's picture on the screen or is it just that he sees your screen and you see his? Then the metaphor could be this table. Right now, the collaboration tools are basically putting people in front of each other with those cameras, but they are missing the table. They don't have a space where they can actually work with those papers or that content together. That's where we are coming in and we're serving like that purpose of that collaborative table between people. So is that like Hawaii 5.0 where they sit there in the control room and they got this big table and they swipe left and swipe right and up and down. It's like totally cool stuff. Yeah. It's something like that. It's actually where we're doing is creating that kind of environment for the people to do those things. For architects, for designers, so for people that need more interaction with the content that they are collaborating with. Okay. So when you went out on the street to talk to prospective customers, what was the reaction? So the feedback from the people, it's really good. I guess that what we've been learning and why it's so important to talk to people is because you actually have to see the way that these different industries work or they have their different workflows and you have to understand how you're going to be helping them actually to achieve what they want. So we are a little bit more research focused. We're coming from the university and I'm a PhD and this thing is grounding us much more into reality. So like programs like an accelerator like this one helps you see those things. So they've got some really high-tech visualization systems at UH for looking at the, for example, the grid. You kind of walk into this virtual reality room, we're in the headsets and there's all this G-Wiz stuff up there, is that what you mentioned? Yeah, so we actually started inside the laboratory in the university called LAVA, that's the laboratory of at the university. I'm sorry, what is it called? LAVA. Like the volcano LAVA. It's born out of that exact lab that you're referring to. Oh really? Yeah, so we actually started with that kind of concept with this great equipment and learning from the best basically and that's why we're able to accomplish like this kind of science fiction devices and kind of transforming the industry. So the next time you guys come back, because I'd like to have you back on the show, is maybe individually so you can give like your pitch. Are they at the pitch stage? Oh, they're going to be very soon. One of the great things they do here at Accelerate UH is they make you tune up a pitch like PowerPoint presentation or presentation that you can give to your perspective, both clients and or your investors. So this will be a great graduation for them once they go through your whole process is to come here and give us their pitch and bring some videos or pictures of this really fantastic technology. You can judge them on there. Exactly. You can go to runtheview.io and see the video there too also if you have time. So Omar, back to you. So what's the deal? Like from the point of view of, hey, I'm a brand new company. I'm coming in here. How much do I have to pay? How much of my hide do I have to give off? Yeah, all of it. To those vulture capitalists. Give us a little idea what the money side is. Yeah, it's a great question. The way that we structured Accelerate UH is that you are eligible for up to $175,000 in investment. We structured it specifically to be able to not take a cookie cutter approach where it's a one size fits all, but depending on the stage and maturity of the team and the startup, then you could be eligible for certain tracks. So if you remember, the initial track is about $25,000. The subsequent track is about $50,000. And then there's $100,000 for follow on capital kind of help grease the runway, if you will, for subsequent investors to come in as well. So in other words, you don't just hand people a blank check and say, here's $175,000, come back whenever. I mean, we'd love to do that. I don't know how much the university would love to do that. But yeah, we definitely are very mindful of the amount that we're investing as to make sure that it's stage appropriate for the companies. One of the ways that you can hurt companies is by giving them too much money. So that kind of, in a way, helps them lose focus. I was in a company like that that raised a ton of money and a couple of $100 million. And all of a sudden, all these brand new porches showed up in the parking lot. We had a 50,000 square foot building. We had all this stuff. And eventually the company went broke because they just blew it all. They struggle on for years and years and years with no money. And then all of a sudden it's like dying man or a guy is just crossing the desert and finds this oasis and then just makes himself to death. Yeah, it's pretty good. So it's really important that you're giving me a right amount of capital, right? Not too much, not too little at the same time that allows for that growth to happen. And that's kind of what we try to do. So how much equity do you pull out of the company? I mean, this isn't free money. I mean, the university, it's like an evergreen fund. That's what it's meant to be. So explain that. Yeah, so it's meant to be an evergreen fund in the sense that it is an investment program. And when we started it back in 2014, it was perhaps one of the first investment programs that a public university had. So depending upon which stage they come in, it could be 25,000 for 6%, or it could be 50,000 for 6%, if they're more mature. But lately we've also been dabbling in different types of models, right? So again, instead of it just being very, very specific and rigid, what is the best framework that we can provide for these startups to help them with their best chance for success and launch? And what's in it for the university? The university is very keen on doing this, right? You have a university like University of Hawaii that gets three, four, or $500 million a year in federal research dollars. And so what are they doing with all of that federal money coming in? They're creating these breakthrough innovations. They're doing a lot of basic science research. But times are changing, right? They have been changing and they will continue to change. So all of that research now needs to get commercialized. How do we get it out into the marketplace? How can we improve people's lives through this research and these technologies and through the talent that is located at the university? So they're very, very interested in helping support and grow this. So you guys are first in basically. It's really hard to get that initial investment. The first investor crosses the finish line and usually really skins you for a lot of your equity. Very, very expensive money when you talk about percentages, yeah. Typically, yeah. We try to keep it very standard so that the people coming in, the startups coming in, the entrepreneurs, they know exactly what they're getting into. And if it fits for their plans and their vision, it's fantastic. If it doesn't, that's fine as well, right? We're not the end all be all. We're just trying to help facilitate their growth. So Tom, what's been your experience? How long have you been in the program? When are you gonna graduate? Because you do have to graduate. It's not like everybody goes in and gets that 25K. You have to graduate. So tell me about your experience. So I think we're, so it's a three month program and we're a month in. Okay. So that. Saturdays. Yeah, yeah. We have sessions on Saturdays where we meet up with all the teams from the cohort and we bounce off ideas from each other and also get like general advice and stuff like that. So where did you find that you were, what, what help did you need the most? I mean, you're probably very good technically, but on the business side, are you brand you or are you? Yes, yes, yeah. You know, it's funny, like I think entrepreneurs need all the help they can get. Like no, like no one, no one makes it alone. Everyone has mentors. So yeah, for me, it was a lot on like the kind of outreach side and like the product design. Like I was like, as me, I'm a developer. So that was kind of where I got help and stuff like that. So how about you, Alberto, had you done some business before or has this, have you always been a researcher or? Most of my background is technical. I did some small courses in the university on business, but I think this kind of programs are great for kind of allowing you to shift your mindset and that technical mindset to be able to approach a more business. So what areas do you find have been most helpful to you? I mean, I think that being any big surprises or moments? I feel the name is pretty descriptive on the accelerator name. You know, it's kind of, they are pushing you forward. So you have so many problems everywhere. Everything is a problem. Basically, you're dealing with new people. You're dealing with new technical issues. You have to reach to other customers or people that maybe it's difficult for you to reach. So in all of those senses, doing that alone, it's much more difficult than doing that in groups of people. And they have the experience of being, this is the first time that I'm building a company. So you have experience for people that built our company before, that built teams before, that they have managed groups of people before. So. So what about IP? I mean, there's always a tendency in the university that the culture is as soon as you discover something new, you've got to go out and publish it right away. So basically, you're opening your secrets away. So how are you doing? I mean, it's a complex problem, I guess. In computer science, I think right now my approach to this is that trying to patent something before getting to a product and getting to users doesn't make too much sense because of what you said. Basically, that you patent and you tell the industry how you're doing something and then somebody that's bigger, just looking at the same thing you must replicate it. I think it works much better now to have an idea and then go out, follow these kind of programs, you know, find some users, go to them, iterate to them, and then actually once you maybe have a couple of users, you see that your product is being used, then you go and try to patent a part of the technology. What about you, Tom? Yeah, you know, like kind of bouncing off of what Alberto said, like, I have the same opinion, but that I also learned here and from Accelerate. I actually did take their classes that they had. Accelerate HI, that's it. Yeah, so I actually did take classes that we met once a week. And during that time, I was actually trying to do a patent for my idea, believe it or not. But yeah, so and the advice I got was actually like you, you know, in like the modern startup kind of, I guess, what's not the rule, what we call it, like standards, it's you, you focus on the market. So it's about getting that product out there. And you know, at the end of the day, once you put something out there, other people are looking at it. So, you know, there's, you know, the most important thing is to get, you know, people like into your product, right, get customers, like less on the patent legal side, more on the market side. Yeah. So Omar, so tell us about your success rate. I mean, you've been around for, what, now four years, about four years. So what's been the history and what do you want to brag about? Well, I want to brag about the whole program. It is one of the top 30 programs in the nation. If you think about that, one of the top 30 accelerators, right? You think about accelerators, other accelerators, whether they're here in town or across the nation, they're pulling multiple demographics and they're pulling from multiple geographic regions, different states, sometimes internationally. Celerate UH pulls from one entity in one state. And we were able to get the top 30 sort of recognition and we were featured in Forbes. That's pretty phenomenal accomplishment for our tiny little island states, right, and for the university. And it's a testament to the talent of our team and the talent of the teams that are coming through the program. I mean, these are, this is a third party that's evaluating hard metrics that's determining the success. So definitely brag worthy, we're excited about it. What else? So how many companies have actually gone through your program so far? Including this cohort, I think we're at around 28 companies that have gone through it. Pretty significant. Yeah, they've raised tens of millions of dollars in follow on funding. I think at last count, it was like over 30 million. And what's even perhaps equally interesting, if you will, is they've generated millions and millions of dollars in revenue. So people are actually buying these products, right? People are using these services. It's not still in the theoretical or academic stage where they just are raising money from investors but don't have anything out in the market. Some of these products, like real green power, are out in the marketplace, improving people's lives here in the state of Hawaii. Yeah, real green power is actually generating revenue right now. Not a lot, but positive cash flow, I think, yeah. So very cool. And that's what we hope more of these teams continue to do is improve people's lives. Yeah, OK. So what do you have to do to qualify to join an Accelerate UH program? Do you have only students or faculty or? Anyone that is associated with the University of Hawaii is eligible. So as long as you have that affiliation, at least one person on your team, the L.A. it's the whole team, right? But at least one person on your team has that affiliation, your eligible student, faculty, staff, alumni, someone who's not even affiliated with the university but sees technology there that they want to license. Right. Yeah, that makes them eligible. So what's been the reaction from the Office of Technology transfer? I guess they've changed their name. I think they dropped the ED. So they're now just opposite of, yeah, they're ought instead of okay. They're supportive, yeah? I'd like to think that they're supportive. You're still in business. Yes, exactly. So it's kind of distinct in terms of what they do versus what we do. They're looking at technologies that they can potentially license. They're also looking at technologies that they can support spinning out. For the companies that are coming through our program that are using UHIP, they work with us and work with the team so that it's a very seamless package that the teams are getting as they go through the program. So once you graduate, do you just like let them fly a little bird and you don't follow up? Or do you have a follow-up program? Oh, we have tons of follow-ups. Well, you can tell us a little bit about that. So we try to stay very connected to our startups, because we're pouring our blood, sweat, and tears in this. We're very passionate about it, and we want to see these companies successful. So too often, they finish and accelerate. Other companies will finish other accelerator programs, and that's kind of it. The accelerators focused on the next batch that's going to come in. So it's kind of like factory-ish, if you will. No, we're very connected to our startups, and we want to be connected. So it's not in a micromanaging way, but if you need help, we're definitely going to be there for you. And all of our startups know that. You even have office space available from time to time, because that can be very hard. If you're living at home with a lot of kids and all the other distractions, like the refrigerator and all that kind of stuff, hard to focus in on. But you can come up to your space and get some quiet time, and then bounce ideas off other people. We open up all of our resources and network. So even Alberto today just had a meeting in the office, so you can have all the equipment and conference room and really kind of sit down and really focus on the business and not have to worry about logistics like that. That's super nice. So the Saturday morning, or the Saturdays, never lasted just the morning, though. And it was always like all day. These guys are even doing longer sessions. We go from, what, 9 to 5 or something. Yeah, I was a lot of talking. Yeah, one of the things I liked about it was the critical review of your stuff. I mean, you didn't let anything go by. It was like you had very experienced people who picked you up, especially when you're doing your pitches. You know, enjoy that. Have you done your pitches yet? No, they haven't got that stage. Oh, OK. Put the fear in them. Yeah, exactly. It's going to teach you how to really do an effective PowerPoint presentation. But more important than death by PowerPoint, it's going to teach you how to pitch. And think quickly on your feet. The elevator pitch. You only have a few seconds to capture that imagination. Now, are you all going to the Hawaii Venture Capital Association dinner? Friday? I am going. What about you, Tom? You don't look very positive. I have not bought my ticket yet, no. You weren't supposed to bring up the dinner in front of them. Yeah. I'm kidding. Well, it's a great opportunity to network and talk to people who have graduated, who are in business, and meet people. That's why I'm going, because I want to find people that can bring on my show and interview them. So I put out my little pitches. I like to have all of your core hurts, like individuals come here and give us a pitch. I appreciate that opportunity. And then what you get here is a very professionally done YouTube video that's published on YouTube. Plus, you can use that in your own marketing and outreach things. For example, they did one for us. I won't name it, but the university put out a marketing sheet. And they put a link into the Think Tech Hawaii. And they had the inventor on there for half an hour talking about his technology. You could never cram all that into two or three pages. So it's very effective. And so I think this could be really part of your program. So we'll see how it works out. So I think that's the end of it. Any last words, Omar? Cohort 7 is coming up soon. So for anyone that's affiliated with the University of Hawaii and wants to be part of an award-winning nationally ranked accelerator, please look at accelerateuh.com. That's xlr8uh.com. And think about applying. OK, there you go. And you have the spelling there on the t-shirt. That's fed.com. So it's a very good website. Yeah, you have your models. So that completes our show for today. Thank you very much. And we'll see you next Wednesday at Hawaii, the State of Clean Energy and Entrepreneurship. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks for having us. All the best. Thank you so much. Good news.