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[Music] welcome to think tech inspector OC 16 Hawaii's weekly newscast on things that matter to tech and Hawaii I'm Lise Anderson and I'm Helen Dora hiding in our show this time we'll visit Nell ha the natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii authority at ke a holy point near Kona on Hawaii Island we'll watch a business plan competition we'll talk to Neil Sims a leader in aquaculture will meet with Greg barber the executive director of Nell ha and we'll make friends with some friendly octopi you probably want to know what Nell hih is well the first thing is that Nellis stands for the natural energy laboratory of Hawaii Authority a state tech aquaculture and energy park of about 900 acres along the ocean at ko holy point it's an attached agency under the State Department of business economic development and tourism D bed and was established in the 1980s under governor George Ariyoshi Nell has mission is to support the development and diversification of Hawaii's economy by providing space facilities and natural resources including deep sea water and solar energy so plentiful at Kona for ocean and energy related research education and commercial activities when we arrived from Kona Airport which is five minutes south of Nell ho we found ourselves in a beautiful new building now has built and in the middle of an impressive business plan competition this is Jim Webb and he's in charge of everything he put this together a couple years ago he's one of the first serial entrepreneurs at Nell ha made his fortune here and he wanted to give back the community so he's doing this out of his own heart I'm here to try to promote an entrepreneurial ecosystem on the Big Island where the entrepreneurs have a network of folks that can help them out advise them mentor them invest in them and that's what we're trying to create we're doing this on both sides of the island and we really see a huge potential for the Big Island to develop all these entrepreneurial businesses and we just want to connect people together so the next step in the process is the pulping this is the pumper that we used right now it's basically a hand cranked you loaded in the top not very efficient but I've gotten pretty fast on it this is what we're looking at implementing in our in our integration our vertical integration it'll stick a lot of time and way more efficient at this point the chair gets the skin too it's taken off by pretty much like a cheese grater and shot into a bucket and then you have the beam covered in the new solutions that slimy substance my name is Noah eaves and I was born and raised on the Big Island of Hawaii and I've been fascinated with mushrooms my whole life and I believe that mushrooms can help save the world so about 6 years ago I read a book by Paul Stamets called mycelium running and I had to reassess everything I knew and thought I knew about mushrooms a lot of people are pretty confused when I bring up mushrooms so when I share some facts so mushrooms were the first living organisms to come off a plan or come on to land and use oxalic acids to start breaking down rocks and allowing plants to come on the land and use those available nutrients about 65 million years ago there's an asteroid impact and it jettisoned a bunch of debris into the atmosphere and the earth was dark and mushrooms inherited the earth so I have I would like to compare him to these guys because I feel be somewhat of an accidental inventor he's created something called Island Creek the sample says going on right now is actually concrete that I make and it's a lalala print and so you're not going to see that any other place I'm the only guy that makes this and there's quite a big process to this type of print and so how did we get from this to tiny homes well like Cory said we're looking for a house we're looking to see you know to own a home on this item especially you have some affordable places but still the labor the excuse me the income to the affordability at a house is a big discrepancy green coconuts in the shell I've been marketing to Resorts for two years up and down along the Kona Coast and seldom in the green raw for seven dollars per coconut and I sell over 200 a week we are so excited to be the forefront of the coconut industry here in Hawaii at present there is no commercial coconut farming or production and it is the most incredible opportunity here I think so many people haven't realized the potential that coconut production will have here in Hawaii cocoa farms is 150 acre we store the farm and you know a Hawaii we specialize in native reforestation invasive species production and hardwood Salvage we've been in business for 3 years and we're profitable our mission is this through we scored a forest green we will propagate endemic low elevation koa forests and reduce invasive plants and trees and an economically stable model the last part is the key restorative forestry means going beyond the idea of sustainability as that term doesn't go far enough sustainable implies maintaining status quo restorative implies and means of course that we're improving the land I want to bring chef Paul up here to say a little bit about this program that Kalama Nui that's Hawaii Community College at the new campus Halawa Nui the culinary Department next semester we're actually doing a buffet class so these students are learning by fire experiences their greatest teacher and I brought Heather up here taylor prepared the IE dish today so today I made a local seared ahi dish with a Hamakua elite u mushroom and wasabi sauce are you all hungry okay we took a few minutes to interview Neil Sims a recognized expert in Hawaii open ocean aquaculture who's been involved in many aquaculture projects at nella over the years I can't say enough good things about Neil he's been here for I don't know several years and he he is you know he's you know the thing is we have a aquaculture initiative that we want to start I think we're a great place for global aquaculture we've had a lot of success and Neal is one of the global Mentors you know that's one of the things we have here we have the facilities at know how we can pump the water to people but we have the mentors and Neal is one of those key resources for Hawaii and there's many here and he's just one of them how much of what Greg said do you agree with yeah III yeah Greg thank you very much that's very flattering but IIIi I think that that I would like to think of myself as being a great advocate for the natural energy lab I have been here now in Kona for 27 years and I've worked at the natural energy lab all of that time for various companies initially came and worked for a Japanese pearl oyster company that was chaired by governor George Ariyoshi and worked for them for two years and then launched out on my own with a business partner that I had met here at the natural energy lab we founded our own business doing black pearls incorporated we worked that business for about eight years here in a number of different stages here at the natural energy lab because it has both the laboratory facilities but then also the opposite enchilada so we had tanks of oysters and algae outside but then we also have the laboratory facilities and the hatchery inside and under control more controlled conditions and so the whole breadth of the facilities that are here that you can start with the original black pearl zinc facility that we had was in their old wet lab building here where Dale and I we had started this company with $4,800 that was the only spare change that we had that we can pulled together for this company and we started out just renting a 10 foot by 10 foot square corner of the the wet lab that had one sink and one saltwater faucet and we started running aquariums with pearl oysters and the business grew from there the pearl oysters were very good to us but by the end of the 1990s I'm trained as a fisheries biologist and by the end of the 1990s I could see that in global food fish production that there was a real looming crisis that a number of fisheries had been very badly managed things such as the North Atlantic cod had that fishery had crashed in 1992 and people kept waiting for it to come back and it never came back it still hasn't come back to this day and after lunch we also took some time to meet with our host Greg Barbour executive director of Nell huh to get a handle on what nella has been doing and what it hopes to do going forward so basically we're probably halfway through our lifecycle we got it where we were 40 years old started in 76 believe it or not and we're probably halfway through our lifecycle we've probably got about half of the land left to develop and so to some extent we're starting to run out of land which is a bit of a problem I just full build out of the 900 acres where there's not maybe not end of the like cycle but end of vacant land yeah you know when it's fully developed but certainly those businesses will be going on and on and on but the amount of build-out will Plateau in terms of development I think there's only so much density that there can be at 900 acres so that's the concept and and then so in the past when we started with otech and then otech failed for various reasons mainly because the price of oil went down into the teens right and he wanted to invest in that technology any longer and so we had this infrastructure the state has invested over a hundred million dollars here and it's the biggest economic development project in the state nobody really talks about that I think Kakaako is bigger because you know the amount of CIP money into Kakaako is probably 200 million of course the Convention Center is 300 million but non tourism related work probably the biggest especially you know alternative economic development diversified economic development project in the state and we're marine science and Advanced Energy and we're on a neighbor island you know a lot of people talk about all legislature administration governor are a walk eccentric but in reality the biggest economic development project in the state is here in Kona you know and and it's here because of the natural resources that are here but so we weren't trying to develop otech in the 80s and the 90s because of the price of oil was so low and so we had all these pipeline system that the state and federal government built in so we used the secondary water for aquaculture purposes desalination we are a hatchery basically land is expensive in Hawaii compared to Asia labor is expensive in more compared to Asia so the companies here shrimp rootstock like I said 60% of the world's shrimp routes are hard to believe comes from Hawaii most of that comes from NOAA a large majority large companies are here hoist errs large amount of the posters planted in the Pacific Northwest come from come from Delhi the clams planted in the Pacific Northwest in the ocean they come from here Kona kampachi that hatchery is here on shore so it's cheaper to grow the shrimp in Asia because land and labor costs are much lower but the disease is rampant we're here because of for biosecurity purposes we have a huge biosecurity program it's really important to aquaculture global aquaculture future so we keep in charge of that we were very particular on how we allow new animals to come in here because anybody will take any animals from now huh because they know there's no diseases here we have the most pristine water in the world maybe not it gets kalapa those Islands is more pristine somebody told us from Woods Hole but we're pretty close and we're very isolated so it's a perfect biosecurity we turn the disadvantage of remoteness into an advantage for off the culture people before me did that we didn't do that but it's amazing how this place has developed over the years and so so we have to focus on biosecurity and and that will be you know very important for us in the future but so we're marine science orientation we still want and I'll talk about a minute we still want to try to reboot ootek I've tried we've tried twice in the past five years since I've been here we went out to bid to try to find it a private company to develop it we tried to negotiate with the Japanese government to do a joint venture with them and now yesterday we just released an RFP we switched we switched our strategy I guess a little bit so we are trying to just offer our facility our land and our pipeline system which is by far the biggest in the world for free to a tech developer and we're entering to a power purchase agreement and buy power from that developer and of course we did our regular walk and talk interviews among the people who were there at know-how that day I'm dr. Rick Navarro CEO of renewable ocean energy and you're speaking here today I sure AM yes I'll be talking about a new way to produce electricity on the ocean we just bring the water up off of the ocean drop it on tees and specially constructed hydroelectric turbines and return the water back to the ocean who our plan is to build the a prototype here and an a one megawatt power plant here at no no huh next year Jason or wacky one of the judges how do you like being a judge I actually think it's quite an honor I mean $25,000 cash prizes quite a bit of seed money for a small company I'm actually quite impressed by chef Paul and his culinary students at Paloma Nui the fish is cooked expertly and so is the shrimp you know a lot of times it's overcooked but this is perfect and the seasoning on everything is superb Jessie you're one of the judges here and I always envied the judges because they get really to focus in on things and and come up with actual suggestions and I noticed that's what this this board of judges is doing it's tough to be a judge sometimes trying to tell give suggestions to entrepreneurs who are very smart individuals know has a great spot to have a business plan competition just because of all the the interesting businesses here you've got Big Island abalone shrimp improvement systems you've got a bunch of other algae opportunities here so this is really a really good home for any type of new type of business and so having a business plan competition here fits great so how do you like being a judge on this kind of program oh I enjoy very much and I thank them for giving the opportunity to be the jerk because I see so wonderful ideas very valuable to the community what do you think of the presenters so far they are great and they make a lot of good points they try to look at the market and finds a difference differentiates the products and my good service to the community Sean so tell us what you do and how you like this program well it's great I'm retired guy and so this came long and and I love that the bulk of it is mentoring now yes I represent the htd services you know like innovate away and so on but really it's working with startup or emerging companies growing companies I have a lot about business background so you know I have successes and failures and so on and working with people going through these growth phases to maybe understand what they're doing and how to deal with the problems as they arise and this sort of thing it's it's really fun to do okay Valerie how much do I eat of your of your spirulina per day one tablespoon per day is a serving and that's enough nutrients to provide all the B vitamins and minerals you need for the day Wow can I try it I'm feeling bigger stronger better faster Mesa and yoshiyama first line Bank we participated this year in the program and I know we participate in the past I believe this is a second and your competition you know what it showcases is the entrepreneurial spirit of the community you know you saw a lot of diversity as far as the number of not only the number of entrants what who was selected to participate in the second round tennis boy economic development Small Business Development Center West white center and you're here at an L how to hear the pitches why well I a number of the companies were clients of ours and our offices right here as well one of it fell into it sort of fell into yeah and I helped a lot of that we had some workshops before this helping people prepare pitches and how to write a business plan it's things like that horn Brooke I was pleasantly surprised at the nu
ber of mentees that I had here today who went from what I would call a 50% performance to a hundred percent performance Kelley Moran and what's your organization well I my company is Hilo brokers but I've also done teaching at UAH I'm a farmer growing mangos dragon fruit having taught at the College of Business a lot of my young students were graduating with a business degree and wondering where they were gonna work where am I gonna find my job what's my career and I really think the long term solution to where a lot of these young business graduates go is entrepreneurial startups the grand and funny high point finale of our visit was when we met and made friends with some very friendly octopi across the street at now huh this is the hatchery this is where we're actually gonna be doing trials for Pera larval rearing we were getting egg production we're getting the females conditioning the females to actually lay eggs pretty easily they typically come out and they start begging for food once there's people around so they might start coming up and out but yeah you know typically the same as you'll see on the reef they're hiding in their in their caves now they do have they don't have a tendency to squirt water up in the air so be yeah they you want that getting wet they come up around 11:00 and 3:00 p.m. begging for food then we feed them and then they go right back in their holes and they don't come out the more that we can raise here on land the less we actually have to go and take out in the wild the para larval stage it's that first 30 60 90 days after they hatch that their planktonic free swimming they're delicate sometimes they're cannibalistic and the food they require has to be live and a you know a certain nutrient profile breeding pretty simple I actually they fight they're prone to fighting so I put them into mating buckets there's some buckets that are on the ground over there with these windows cut out and they have little holes in them and the the male actually his mating he has a mating arm which is called the hectic odorless and he reaches that through the holes in the bucket and reaches the female and transfers a packet of sperm it's a year and a half lifespan that's it so really short lifespan they grow really really quickly when you want to harvest them it's kind of when you when you when their growth rate starts to taper off you're giving them the same amount of food but they're not giving you more meat so to speak we have them lay their eggs in these tanks you know the it's they have to be about a year and a half old to do that they lay their eggs and then they die of senescence shortly after hatching we would love to be able to produce them for human consumption you know that's the biggest market for for octopus so there's really there are no hatchery technologies for rearing most cephalopods you know in nakamoto setting that's really the end game is to actually start producing them and and and you know selling them local I try not to get too attached to them I've learned that from the very beginning yeah I think they're amazing it's terrible when they die my staff names them so this one's sticky I guess yep I guess this is why no no I mean well there's that all in all it was a great trip so many good things are happening at Nell ha it's very important that we have facilities like this and that we nurture and incentivize Hawaii ocean and energy resources and entrepreneurs just as they do at Nell ha there's nothing like the Big Island and there's nothing like NOAA to demonstrate the richness promise and prospect of Hawaii's natural resources want to know more about what's going on at Nell huh check it out at Nell Hut RG you and now let's check out our think tech schedule events going forward think tag broadcasts talk shows live on the internet from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on weekdays then we'd broadcast our earlier shows all night long and on the weekends and some people listen to them all night long and 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we'd like you to stay in touch with us let's think together we'll be right back to wrap up this week's edition of think tech but first we want to thank our underwriters the Atherton Family Foundation Castle & Cooke : the Center for microbial oceanography research and education collateral analytics the Cooke foundation the Hawaii Council of associations of apartment owners Hawaii Energy the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum the Hawaii Institute of geophysics and planetology Hawaiian Electric Company's the high tech Development Corporation Galen Howe of BAE Systems integrated security technologies Kamehameha Schools Duane Kurisu Cal Marley and the Friends of think-tank MW Group Limited the Schuyler Family Foundation the Sidney Stern Memorial Trust the Polo Foundation Yuriko Jesu Gomorrah okay Helen that wraps up this week's edition of think tech remember you can watch think tech on spectrum OC 16 several times every week can't get enough of it just like Helen does for additional times check out OC 16 dot TV for lots more think tech videos and for underwriting and sponsorship opportunities on think tech visit think tech Hawaii comm be a guest or a host a producer or an intern and help us reach and have an impact on Hawaii thanks for being part of our think tech family and for supporting our open discussion of tech energy diversification and global awareness in Hawaii and of course the ongoing search for innovation wherever we can find it you can watch this show throughout the week and tune in next Sunday evening for our next important weekly episode I'm Elyse Anderson and I'm Helen Dora Hyden Aloha everyone [Music]
