What Does Hawaii's Future Look Like?

[Music] so what does the future of Hawaii look like particularly when we're talking about the economy and jobs for future Generations can Hawaii continue to rely so heavily on tourism and if so for how long a recent white paper by two economists offered suggestions for things Hai could do to ensure that the economy continues to grow and while I respect the findings of the authors I have to respectfully disagree with what they proposed I know in Hawaii we're not supposed to rock the and everyone just gets along and agrees but I I just couldn't help myself and so this is my reaction to what they're proposing as well as a counter solution or an alternative to how we can improve the economy here in Hawaii and while I may not have a PhD in economics I did take a economics class back in college I think it was macroeconomics could have been microeconomics either way hey I got one [Music] a I highly encourage you to read the paper for yourself but essentially what the authors are proposing is that in order for Hawaii to grow its economy and to ensure a bright future for upcoming Generations we need to invest in human capital through the University of Hawaii essentially developing innovation technology and ideas while importing financial resources and if that sounds a little ambiguous yeah it's cuz it kind of is now I'm not going to go through the entire paper but I just want to highlight three sections of the paper and just offer some comments the first thing is let's talk about the kids each summer the same truth is rediscovered most bright young people don't see their future in Hawaii by the time they finish high school and enter College they have been socialized to believe that there is no future for educated knowledge workers in Hawaii now as someone who went to public school here in Hawaii I have to respectfully disagree I don't think that we're socially conditioned to believe that if you're smart if you got ideas if you're dreaming big sorry there's no place for you in Hawaii because if that's the case honestly the future is looking pretty bleak for most local kids and I'm just thinking back to my own experiences back in high school frankly I wasn't really thinking that far into the future I mean I knew I'd eventually have to grow up and get a job but I never really thought about whether people who are smart there's no place for them I looked at my own parents for example both well educated PhD and a master's degree from the mainland they're both from here they they came back home and if I look at them as an example they came back and made a life for themselves here people who are Highly Educated who are knowledge workers and they raised a family so based on that observation I don't see it as being impossible but if that is true particularly for public high school kids I hope that they unlearned that I hope they don't think that Hawaii is just some brain drain place that if you're smart forget it you got to go Mainland but now the second part when correlated with ocean Net's 10-year experiment working with Hawaii's K through toll Public Schools focusing on nearly 5,000 teachers and 200,000 students where they were introduced to design thinking computer science and artificial intelligence and there was no observable change in outcomes an important Discovery was made one could argue that this decade long K through2 research project was a failure however one often learns more from failure than when things go as expected now when it comes to what they observed and trying to teach design thinking and computer science and artificial intelligence in schools which by the way I think is absolutely wonderful not everyone is interested in stem I know that stem is getting this huge push back from I don't know maybe the early 2000s and my brother was one of those students who went to public school and because of that stem push that's where he found his interest he went to IIT and he went off to Berkeley for engineering wonderful education wonderful experience but the thing is not everyone is interested in stem I think we have to remember that that there is a spectrum of interest and if Hawaii were just to produce scientists and engineers and people that are working in the computer science Fields while that's wonderful that they have the potential to earn more jobs not everybody wants to do that and don't get me wrong I love technology in fact this is what I'd look like as amongus so instead of just pushing stem so much maybe we should try to introduce kids to a a variety of Industries things like the trades in construction maybe financial literacy so that no matter what job they have they're able to manage their finances maybe teach them some business skills so they could potentially start their own business because I think that these are a lot more Universal skills that they can apply to whatever they choose to do because I'm glad that in school stem wasn't pushed on me in fact I didn't know what I wanted to do when I graduated high school my original plan was to become a science teacher I wanted to teach and that's why I went to the University of Northern Colorado but that quickly changed I changed majors and found myself in English and journalism for some reason because that's what I enjoyed and I think it's okay that people have different interests not everybody wants to go into science and math and engineering and Technology those are wonderful Fields but when you look around at what people actually end up doing most of them are not in the majors that they ended up choosing in college and even if they are they may not be interested in it for very long the second thing I want to comment on is this idea of investing in human capital through the University of Hawaii although most in Hawaii recognize that the University of Hawaii's football team is important to the community few fully appreciate that the future relies on the University of Hawaii supporting research and investing in human capital formation producing graduates scientists engineers and entrepreneurs and creating knowledge now as someone who supports the University of Hawaii and their Athletics I kind of question the idea of solely relying on uh to train our own because I would argue that the best way to gain knowledge and experience is actually to send our kids way to the mainland so that they can learn over there what other people are doing and then bring that knowledge back here to Hawaii because there's the potential that it could create this sort of vacuum right this knowledge vacuum that oh we're just in Hawaii we're so isolated that things don't change that Innovation that we're trying to push that they're suggesting I don't know if can come from if we continue to just teach and educate here and it's not to say that Innovation can't occur within Hawaii but I don't think that through the university is the way to do it I think it's by sending people that are from Hawaii away for a little while and they bring back some of those ideas and they somehow blend it because they're from here they blend it with the local culture and that's where the Innovation comes from now I liking this to private school here in Hawai now hear me out it's sort of a stretch but I hope that they connect now do you think that the most talented the brightest kids in private school like punah hole started private school when they were kindergarten or maybe later down the road like seventh or 9th grade and I think that's a very important question to ask because it questions whether these schools themselves produce the top talent or are they just nurturing the top talent because when I think about private school admission especially as kids get older they're a lot more selective the schools are able to select the smartest and the brightest and the most talented but those kids got that intelligence that ability to learn that Talent from outside of private school and they're all sort of brought together and concentrated when they get older and start moving up in the grades and so to me that's not proof that the private schools themselves are the ones educating and making these kids smart they're already smart before they get to private school it just private school nurtures that it enhances that ability and I would be very curious to know if the brightest kids are really from private school in the sense that did they grow up and did they start their education from kindergarten or are the brightest kids the ones who go out to do amazing things even the valedictorians did they start school later like did they work so hard in K through 8th grade for example to just get into private school so that once they start 9th grade and high school that they're actually smarter and more talented than the kids who have been in private school their entire lives now how this ties into this whole idea of growing your own versus sending kids out maybe those who make the biggest impact in Hawaii are those who actually spent time away whether it's living up on the mainland on their own other worldly travels or education maybe those are the people who although they're from Hawaii they go away and they bring back their ideas they bring back their experiences and they're the ones who make the changes around here and it's because of those experiences that we're all benefiting from it and again that's not to say that someone who spends their entire life here in Hawaii educated through the public school system here can't make changes cannot come up with great ideas but I think when you're talking about Innovation and creating new things you have to draw from new experiences experiences that are not local or native to Hawaii and when you do that you're able to then blend these new ideas pulling from a myriad of experiences so that now you have brand new ideas that we've never seen yet they're still familiar and can assimilate themselves with within the culture and last point on this paper States Hawaii has become comfortable exporting financial resources and importing expertise but it needs to consider a 180 degree shift exporting expertise knowledge and Innovation investing in human capital formation and knowledge creation while tapping Global Financial Resources I understand the idea of wanting to export expertise and knowledge and and and all of these wonderful things but in a very more practical sense wouldn't those people who have The Innovation the knowledge and all of that technology wouldn't they just move away I mean isn't that what we're trying to prevent here people leaving the state young people who are well educated that they're going to take their Innovation their entrepreneurial Spirit their ideas they're just going to take them and move elsewhere because if we're so focused on exporting these ideas what's to stop them from leaving with those ideas as well and we've seen this with some Hawaii tech companies Who start here in Hawaii and that's wonderful but they end up taking their idea elsewhere to California to Texas to other states because it just makes more business sense now let's talk about stem and the University of Hawaii a key driver for growth should be the University of Hawaii which should be a Haven for Big aspirational Ideas aggressive stem Recruitment and investment preparing local kids to be part of the future requires that local K through 12 schools share a version of the future that includes them the kids exactly let's get the kids involved because maybe they're not interested in stem or better yet let's take a look at what Hawaii actually needs the job that it needs to fill we need more workers in the healthcare industry good let's find ways to create Health Care Pathways for these high school students so that they know exactly where they can go from high school through College to getting some of the jobs here locally we need more people in the trades in construction since that's an upcoming industry and they project that in the short term construction is going to be huge here in Hawaii but we don't have enough workers if that's the case great let's get more career paths that are involved in the trades Plumbing construction electrical all those things so that these kids know that yes there's jobs available but also that they can make a living here you don't only have to be a doctor or a lawyer to get rich here in Hawaii in fact you could be in debt for a while with the student loans that you're going to have to take there are other career paths that you can earn a very good living the thing is we just don't hear about them all that much and when you pair with that awareness of what jobs we need in Hawaii with financial literacy things start to get a little bit more affordable here in Hawaii because we desperately need people who can fix things and talking about more real things not just designing things but we need people that can fix the Plumbing because especially in this area it's going to need a lot of work we need people that can fix cars and air conditions and solar panels and all the things that just regular people have to deal with now I think that this is a really great discussion to have what does Hawaii's future look like and what does the economy turn into as we're sort of turning a corner here post pandemic I just don't think exporting expertise and expecting Financial Resources to come pouring into Hawaii is very realistic or practical now at the end of the paper the author cited this map that King kakawa used on his exploration in the 1800s and in it it placed Hawaii in the center of the map and that was supposed to change the perspective on how other people saw Hawaii that it could be the center for economic activity but first to think about the map Hawai is at the center because it's in relation to other ports and Naval stations as a strategic point we had agriculture going at the time and so of course it makes sense that we'd have Hawaii connected to all of these places because that's how things moved back then through ships and second he could put Hawaii at the center because he's the king of course he could do that but I think if you talked about Hawaii in that perspective these days you'd get laughed at again there's no disrespect to Hawaii this is my home it's where I'm from but spend any amount of time away from Hawaii and you realize we're not the center of the world people don't really think about us all that much and that's okay but spending time away from Hawaii will show you that perspective that's the only way you can see it because for the most part people View Hawaii as a vacation destination and I don't think we're ever going to change that that's just the way that we've marketed ourselves over the years but it doesn't mean that we don't have a unique culture here or even a micro economy or micro Society here we're so so isolated our economy is very delicate as was shown through the pandemic and I'd love to see us diversify our economy here in the more immediate I'd love us to be able to take care of ourselves to look at the things that we really do need here and to address those issues grow food that people actually eat here through things like vertical Farms make sure that we're staffed up in our healthc care facilities so that current and future Generations will be taken care of and have a healthy construction and government Workforce so that we can continue to build well maybe not so much those but continue to build as well as provide government services so that we can take care of ourselves because rather than asking what can Hawaii export out to the world I think the better question is what can Hawaii do to take care of itself in the future so let me know what you think in the comments below thanks for watching and aloha hello hello hello hello hello hello from Hawaii

Channel: Hello From Hawaii

Views: 6,126

Keywords: living in hawaii, Life in hawaii, what is it like in Hawaii, Moving to hawaii, hello from hawaii, hawaii, oahu, honolulu, hawaii life, life on hawaii, hawaiian life

Id: KP5kWvcVmsA

Length: 16min 10sec (970 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 05 2024