 Good Noontide, Howard Wigg, think, take Hawaii, hold green. I have two really, really distinguished guests today, Yoko Kazawa and Fengchuan Liu. And they are the best people I've ever heard about building community. And what do we mean by that? I'm in the energy efficiency field and I think that energy efficiency is the greatest thing since sliced bread all my colleagues do except we get pushed back. And often legislative session is going on, often we meet in the capital building and we say A and they say B and it's an adversarial process. And anybody in the audience can identify with that. Yoko and Fengchuan are the masters of avoiding adversarial relationships and building community and coming to mutual agreement. And so I so much am thankful for your being here. Today both are the employees of 30 meter telescope and all of us remember and still here to this day the opposition to the telescope. I was on the big island at the height of the protest movement and you go over a saddle road and there was actually a stoplight installed right at the peak where the road goes off to Marakea and hundreds of people swarming around. This was a massive protest and so the 30 meter people have a lot of work to do and they have hired the best of the best to do that work and build community. So welcome to you both and who wants to be the first speaker? I can just briefly introduce myself, Fengchuan Liu, the project manager for the last three plus years. I work at this in Hilo and moved from California and Yoko Kakazu. You want to say a few words? Thank you so much Howard for having us. It is such a great honor to be invited to your program. My name is Yoko Kakazu. I manage education and outreach programs for the 30 meter telescope international observatory. I joined TMT about two years ago and I've been working closely with our new project manager, Fengchuan Liu, in Hilo. My hello Yoko and my hello Howard and really very much appreciated for this opportunity to speak here. I'm a big believer of sustainability but today we want to talk about different aspects of sustainability. It's our understanding of sustainable astronomy. Yes, it is true that TMT, if everyone built, will be a very powerful scientific machine that will produce sustainable scientific discoveries that will revolutionize our understanding of our place within the universe and understanding the universe itself. However, the events in 2019 all taught us that by itself is not enough and the protest and the rest of what I said Howard mentioned really taught us that the approach we took leading up to 2019 was far from sustainable and it caused divisions and conflict within the community within among family and friends. We very much on behalf of our organization, we very much apologize for that. And since then, since 2019, we have fundamentally changed our approach to community engagement. This is not a public relations approach. It is a fundamental change from what we believe to the sustained TMT as part of the astronomy community. We understand that ultimately the decision on the future of TMT, our T-arrest with the Hawaii and especially the native Hawaii community, we respect that fact. We also believe that it's our kuleana, it's our responsibility to learn from our past mistakes, to do what is right for the community, to help heal the visions and to build long-term trust relationship in Hawaii where it says seven generations and we want to contribute to a better future for everyone in Hawaii, especially those in underserved and that is how we want to contribute to a sustainable astronomy. And I want to say from the astronomy point of view in terms of the next generation, large telescopes, this is the optimal telescope in the way that our eyes can see. And we're not alone. European nations are building a 39-meter telescope in Chile in the southern hemisphere and nearby there's another US-led effort, a coalition that's building a 24, 25-meter telescope in Chile. And TMT, the 30-meter telescope, is an only large telescope, a future large telescope in the northern hemisphere. And we have combined our efforts together between TMT, GMG, as a US combined effort and 16 National Science Foundation investment so that the astronomers in the US can have access to both the north and the southern skies. This is on the pop, yes. Go ahead. Well, let me jump in for a minute because I loved your statement to build trust. I've read a couple of books written by Navy SEALs, Navy SEALs, the toughest, toughest military people in all of the US, maybe in the whole world. And when you get through with a book and you ask what this was all about, why are they so effective as a team? There's all this chaos, this fire, noise, everything going on around them and they work as a team. The basic reason is they have worked together and gone through adversarial situations so long that they build trust among one another. In the roughest of times, they know that this guy is going to do this, this guy is going to do this and we're going to win the battle. So I love that phrase, build trust. Thank you. And it is absolutely essential, we're learning. And if I could mention that from the get-go, TMT actually understands the monarchy is a very special place and we want to lower the profile of the observatory and we have designed the observatories even though the mirror itself is three and a half times the size of, for example, existing telescopes or Gemini. The profile of the structure is only about 20 to 30 percent taller and it's smaller than the other two large telescopes. And recently there was a few, a couple of years ago, there was a National Academy run every 10 years or so. They run a survey to have the best astronomy minds together to rank the project that's the most important for astronomy, both in space and ground. TMT and GMT together as a combined effort was ranked number one on the ground based project. And so this allows National Science Foundation a chance, an opportunity to look into TMT and possibly invest in TMT. I want to say that last year we received six and a half million dollars from National Science Foundation, but this is not a commitment to construction. It is not a commitment to future funding. It is an interim effort to support a design effort. The future commitment, if any, by NSF. We don't want to speak for NSF, but our understanding is that a future commitment would have to rely on multiple things. One is to make sure they fully review the project, every aspect of the project. Another important aspect is they complete the federal version of the environmental impact statement, including the cultural consultation or the so-called Section 106 process. Meanwhile, I would say we have all benefit from the tech technology, both the 30-meter telescope and the 39-meter telescope, and also the one in space, you probably have all heard, the James Webb Space Telescope, JWST. We've all used the technology, Keck material, which puts the segments mirrors together and makes them perform as monolithic. TMT is three times the diameter of Keck, nine times the collecting area, but when you look at the real important thing, which is to identify and detect the very faint points, for instance, from far away in the universe, the TMT capable is 81 times more capable of Keck. So this is the type of revolutionary improvement. And let me point out, you mentioned money. If this is built, it's going to be a magnet for astronomers worldwide to come and participate in the viewing. And that brings dollars to the big island. These are highly paid people. They're probably going to stay in four, five-star hotels, eat out, lavishly, you know, bring somebody into the big island economy and boost employment. And the existence of this meter or telescope, if it happens, is in itself going to bring employment. It'll be local people will have a good job, sir. Thank you, Howard. This is actually, it's a good segue. We want to cut carbon footprint. So we actually are actively trying to reduce travel to be sustainable. We also want to stay in regular hotels, not necessarily regular hotels, but we contribute to the local economy more than just being here, traveling over here. We are in the process of converting a Hilo facility to actually bring actual works to Hilo. We need to build several hundreds of these segments to put together a certain meter telescope. And we are in the process of doing that assembly here in Hilo. Higher local workforce, local students giving opportunities and then contribute in a meaningful way to local economy. And this, we're doing this without any condition, precondition. We believe this is the right thing to do and we need to do that. So you're bringing young people up also involving them and saying, this is the prospect. Yeah, and we look forward to a new Hilo farm, you call on the digital activities. We'll work with schools, young people, but even for this effort, building astronomy instruments here, we are working with UH Hilo, with UH, IFA here, with college, how to work together our workforce and students training. So we have actively in the last three years or so, practically reach out to hundreds of people. We talk to our own people who are supporters and people in the middle, but we proactively reach out to the people who actually protest against. We've talked to many hundreds of them. And I would say every conversation ends much better than it starts. This is a great way to, in a private setting, in a general conversation, to really understand and learn the true opinions from both sides and to understand what mistakes we made, how we can do the right thing together, what the community generally care, how we can work on the future together for the long term. None of what we do is for short term. So as my summary, I will start it to you, Ko. Sure. Well, thank you for all the wonderful speech, Fintuan. I would like to re-emphasize the major changes that took place within the TMD organization over the last few years, the massive protests in 2019. And in fact, the COVID-19 pandemic gave us an opportunity to pause, reflect on our past and seek a new approach. So at TMT, we now have new leadership. Fintuan became project manager, and the first thing he did as a project manager was to move to Hilo Hawaii to better engage with the local communities, to listen to and learn from community members, in particular, those people who were traditionally opposed to projects. Now we have a new team based in Hilo Hawaii, and we are making new partnerships. So I manage education and workforce programs for the 30 meter telescope. And our theme is community partnership. All our programs are community driven, so they are led by our partners, community partners, collaborators and designed to meet the unique needs and interests of local community members through these grassroots dialogues with community members, in particular, those people who have traditionally opposed to projects. We actually realized that we do have a shared vision. We all want to create a better future for our keiki or our future generations. So with that in mind, we are co-creating programs to benefit our local community, in particular, keiki. And we have four categories in our education and workforce programs. The first one is K-12 education and workforce development programs. And the second one is culture-based learning. So we work with cultural practitioners and way-finding navigators, experts. And the third category is the environment protection and conservation. So we are working with Bona Kei Reforestation people, and we actively support their invasive weed pool activities, as well as the native bird, polyla, the endangered bird, a study of Mona Kei, and as Fenchuan said, we're really trying to cut down business troubles to reduce the CO2 carbon footprint for our earth. And all these programs, as I said, is led by our community partners. And regardless of the construction of TMT on Mona Kei, we are committed to do this because this is the right thing. This is the final thing to do for the community. So I want to emphasize this because this is so important. Regardless of the future of TMT on Mona Kei, we are committed to do the right thing for the community, for the future of our Keiki children. And ultimately, the decision of TMT on Mona Kei rests with Hawaii community and Native Hawaiian communities, not us. We are here to be a good neighbor, good citizen in Hawaii, and working together with our partners. And we are listening to and learning from community members every day. So if you have any questions or suggestions, we are willing to learn more and hear from you. You know, you brought something to mind in my work, namely, we had a strong opposition from the big industry here in Hawaii to one of our programs. And we kept saying, well, are you opposed to this? Are you opposed to that? Well, no, not really. And finally, we had dialogue long enough where they put in writing an email. This is what concerns us. And this, instead of this great big thing, this turned out to be a teeny little portion of the whole thing. And we said, oh, we have no objection to that. We can change that language. So maybe this is a type of process that you folks are going through. Well, absolutely. I think in the past, there has not been enough dialogues with community members, in particular those people in rural areas and Hawaiian communities. We did not engage with these people. And so that was the issue we know. We recognize that. And this is why we are committed to talking to or listening to and learning from our community members. And this is the main reason when Trump moved to Hawaii over two years ago. Yeah, Howard, I want to pick up on that. It's a very good point. In fact, I stopped using the Freddie's supporters or opponents. And this was a regular thing a few years ago. And once it doesn't matter your position on this subject. And once we start talking, we start having genuine conversations and truly express our opinion. We find, always find out. We have much more in common and the areas that we differ. As you mentioned, Howard, we can work together on this. It's just not that we're not asking anybody to change position. It's just have a true understanding of how we feel about things, how we view things, how we value things. And we are equal humans. And we always find that we have a lot more in common than we are apart. Yeah, it's when you really start getting down down to the nitty gritty here. That's again, I give the example of you oppose the whole thing. And then when you start talking, start talking that opposition just shrinks and shrinks and shrinks. And then you say, oh, OK, now we can come together with this. Yeah, and I would not. You've had that experience many times, I imagine, already. Yeah. Yeah, I would add, everything starts with respect. When we sit down, we respect each other. And the conversation starts and is based on respect, mutual respect. It always leads to a better place. Yeah, you look at some of the big, huge issues that are causing the whole world problems right now, costing millions of dollars, costing thousands of lives. And I think it all boils down to respect. How can we respect one another? But yeah. So that's you guys are geniuses at that, I think. Yeah, no, we learn this from the conversations in the community. It's not. It's actually when it comes to the bottom line, it's actually very simple. It is so complicated and so complex. It is actually very simple. We're all humans. We want to respect each other. We want to do what's good for the community, for people on the islands. And that's a starting point and it's a long term. Yeah, another good example might be our presidential situation. Now, there's very little respect on this side, for that side, the vice versa. There's a lot of disrespect and it's pretty well tarried in our country apart right now. So we should multiply you guys by about a thousand times. And I'm afraid to do this. Thank you. Yuko, can you give any examples of meetings that you had where you started apart and came together, came together? I'm sure I would like to actually talk about some of the education backgrounds that we started with our community partners a few years ago. So as you know, the COVID-19 pandemic really impacted our students in Hawaii because there was no in-person teaching, everything was online. And a lot of the students, in fact, a lot of students in rural area even didn't have internet. So without internet, how can you take online classes? It's impossible, right? So the impact of COVID-19 was quite severe among students, in particular underserved students. So after the pandemic and when school started in-person teaching in 2021 full, we asked local school teachers, how can we assist students? And the answer was, well, come to school and help assist our students by providing tutoring assistance. So at TMT, we started going to schools, local schools every week. And it's been amazing experience. So this tutoring program is led by local teachers. We go there, assist students as community members. And it's been very successful for reducing the number of students failing multiple classes, but it's also helping us to understand, better understand the schools and students' real needs and interests and helping us to become a better communicator, better teacher and have a deeper sense of community. So the sense of community is critical for our work. And this is what we believe in TMT. And in the process, you're tutoring them, I guess in general ways, but you two are either scientists or almost scientists. And you're probably pointing the students to the fact that science could mean a whole lot to them in the future. If they take science courses, their future absolutely will be better. Yeah, a lot of students tell us, oh, gee, we didn't know how fun science is, how fun math is because once you get it, you get it. And it's so much fun. So some of my students are now getting A plus and A. So she doesn't want to come to this tutoring program. And I miss her, but this is wonderful. And this is extremely rewarding for us. Yeah, yeah. It sets a light bulb off in their heads. Ah, there's a whole new world out there. And it is amazing to see them believing themselves, I can do this. And, you know, I can get A's and B's. It's an entirely live training, just watch. Yeah. Yeah, you do a whole paradigm shift, their self-image. Yeah. And it's science-based. Yeah. We very much appreciate such opportunities and contributing and also learning from such experience from your students. And we've just got a teeny little time left, a very brief question. Do you connect or point out that the Hawaiians who came here from Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands, they were great astronomers? They could not have made it here without knowledge of astronomy. Yes, absolutely. And in fact, we are working with a Polynesian wayfinding navigator. He grows for local students, and it's been such an honor for us. And I'm myself learning a lot about traditional wayfinding and navigation. And some of the concept between Kumalito and the cosmology, there's a lot in common as well. Well, on that very, very cheery note, we have run out of time. And Yuko and Finchuan, thank you so much. And again, this program will be archived. You can use it for educational purposes down the road here. And if I can find other opportunities for you to speak, I'm definitely going to offer them to you. So I'll have a hard time for this opportunity. Yeah, so I would wait code green. Bye bye and see you next time.