Blue Startups
Blue Startups

Our Network of Mentors Make Blue Startups What It Is.

Doreen Wong

Former Investor & Venture Partner, Republic

Doreen Wong

Doreen (Dory) Wong is dedicated to supporting social entrepreneurs and their climate and sustainability solutions. For over a decade, she has helped Fortune 500 companies, governments, nonprofits, universities, incubators, accelerators, and venture capital (VC) firms with funding and scaling their climate initiatives. Doreen is currently focused on enabling ocean-based climate innovation. Doreen is an advocate for more diverse, equitable, and inclusive communities. She serves on the Board of Diversity VC (North America – U.S.) and is part of the Women in VC, Women+ in Climate Tech, and The Outdoorist Oath communities. Doreen is also a member of My Climate Journey and Hawaii Venture Capital Association.

Elyn Yao

Vice President of Marketing, Hybrid Work Solutions, HP

Elyn Yao

Marketing executive with over 25 years of experience in developing and leading teams to successfully define and implement marketing strategies that build brand, generate demand, and fuel growth. Expertise lies in global go-to-market planning, integrated marketing campaigns, marketing communications, strategic partnerships, and product marketing.

Joey Katzen

Managing Director, Hawaii Angels

Joey Katzen

Joey guides our companies with Entrepreneurship and Strategy expertise.

I am an entrepreneur and business strategist who revels in working with driven, creative people.

I am led both to existing, agile companies looking to leverage their present resources into new revenue possibilities or into adjacent spaces, and also to promising innovators who are interested in taking their early and untested concepts to market. In particular, I get excited about entering markets with high-value and high-margin innovative products.

My process is marked by speed, creativity, and short bursts of intensity. In addition to those already connected to a new project, I might involve several other entrepreneurs that specialize in other aspects to jump-start brainstorming.

My history is varied, and I find I use these experiences on a nearly daily basis to screen the “marketable” from the merely “interesting”. From my background in engineering, I revel in the possible, and how to change answers from “no” to “not that way, but how about if we do this?” From my background in communications, design, and marketing, I have insight into what will sell, and what particular audiences want to see and what they’ll pay. And from my background in law, I’m aware of the bottom line and the risks inherent in any venture (along with how to minimize them).

My efforts have been instrumental in helping to develop a high-growth national company from which I have had a successful, sizable exit, along with a number of early-stage concepts before and after roll-out. Two of the companies in which I participated in early stages have been recognized on the Inc 500 list: Vendormate (#25 in 2010) and BroadSource (#385 in 2007).

Specialties: Among my specialties, I assist in helping to distill creative ideas into viable and marketable concepts, researching and targeting audiences from initial stages to later growth, developing business plans, constructing marketing campaigns and plans, managing operations staff and product development teams, and planning for scale.

Josh Sullivan

Managing Director, alani Capital

Josh Sullivan

Josh Sullivan, Ph.D., is an American investor, serial entrepreneur, startup mentor, best-selling author and beginner surfer.

Josh is the Managing Director of alani capital, investing in visionary entrepreneurs and diverse founders in early-stage startups for angel, pre-seed and seed rounds.

Previously, Josh was the co-founder and former CEO of Modzy, the enterprise AI platform to deploy and scale production machine learning. He founded and led the worldwide AI practice at Booz Allen, as EVP and Partner. He also led large technical programs in the National Security & Intelligence business.

Josh authored best-selling AI book “Mathematical Corporation” with comment from Mark Fields, CEO Ford and Larry Bossidy, CEO Honeywell, and he is the co-author of the celebrated “Field Guide to Data Science”, now in the second edition. Early in his career, Josh co-founded a software & services startup and scaled the small business to a successful exit. Josh started his career in US Intelligence Community as an engineer.

He is a frequent conference speaker with numerous articles in the Atlantic, CNBC, WSJ, HBR, and TechCrunch. Josh is a former corporate advisory board member MIT CSAIL, Purdue University, and the University of Maryland, and former Member of Center for New American Security (CNAS) Task Force on Artificial Intelligence and National Security.

Paulette Jencks

Head of Partnerships, WRK/360

Paulette Jencks

After earning an MBA from Cornell University, Paulette Jencks has spent years growing revenue for start-ups in the parent-focused space. At Kidstir, an ecommerce children’s cooking company, she grew the subscriber base significantly in the first 6 months of launch. At Weldon, a parent coaching and wellness start-up, she created and executed the go-to-market strategy for enterprise clients uncovering the largest revenue driver of the business. Paulette is able to put all the juggled pieces of a growing business together to focus on the most important areas to drive focused growth.

Prior to working with start-ups, Paulette spent years in healthcare consulting working across big pharma, specialty pharma and insurance companies.  Her projects were focused across digital marketing, change management and strategy. Her success is contributed to the deep relationships she builds with clients to understand their needs and work together to achieve common goals.

Paulette has a passion for female entrepreneurship and enjoys being a part of Luminary and HeyMama communities to continue to support women in their careers.

Steve Markowitz

Co-founder, Beestripe and LifeDNA

Steve Markowitz

Steve Markowitz is a Honolulu-based impact investor and former public company CEO. His areas of expertise are healthtech and consumer internet. Steve co-founded and led pioneering loyalty marketer MyPoints.com, taking it public on Nasdaq (peak market cap $2.5 billion). He is an entrepreneur turned hands-on investor, serving as vice chairman of Blue Startups alumnus iFirst Medical Technologies and chairman of LifeDNA and BeeStripe, all based in Honolulu. Steve has been honored by his alma mater UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business with the coveted Richard H. Holton Teaching Fellowship, recognizing his well-received lectures in the Entrepreneurship and New Venture Finance courses. He is also a Japanese speaker and globalist who shares in Blue Startups’ vision of Hawai‘i as the ultimate East Meets West locale.

Tianna Johnson

Founder, People Culture Talent

Tianna Johnson

As a values-driven people leader, I specialize in building diverse, inclusive communities of exceptionally talented professionals. Recognizing the importance of an organization’s foundation, I have a holistic approach when it comes to architecting scalable processes and operations early; So when a team undergoes hypergrowth, everything is in place to move twice as fast. As an experienced operator across nearly all aspects of the people function, I am an ecosystem thinker. Taking into account people, culture, talent and the business as a whole, I empower stakeholders to help their future selves by evaluating trade-offs, edge cases, and what needs to be done right now, next week and over the next six months to achieve unicorn status.

With over 15+ years of experience, I launched my own consulting firm, People Culture Talent. As a collaborative thought partner and advisor to early and mid-stage founders, I help companies scale sustainably during critical stages of growth via the most valuable resource – people. My passion for people, culture, and talent stems from the joy of assembling the world’s best teams, so they can achieve their life’s best work.

At Notion, I was the first Recruiting/People hire where I led recruiting teams and programs to scale from 30 to 600+ employees. Previously, I led recruiting teams at Render, Lyft and Github.

Specialties: Talent Operations, Talent & Recruiting Strategy, IDEA Strategy, Diversity & Inclusion, People Operations, Scaling Fast Growing Teams, Culture Building, Strategic Planning, Employee Relations, Workforce Planning, Training & Development, People Programs, Talent Programs and Compensation & Benefits.

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Adam Smith

Head of Engineering, Beta Acid

Adam Smith

Adam guides our companies with software development expertise.

Adam is a senior iOS engineer who’s created apps for both startups and Fortune 500 firms. He’s an MIT-trained technologist with a 17 year track record of successfully delivering digital products. His career has taken him around the world from Paris to Hawaii as a startup founder, product manager, and engineer.

Alan Schlissel

Partner, Schlissel & Associates, LLC

Alan Schlissel

Alan Schlissel is managing partner of Schlissel & Associates, with more than 15 years of experience in consulting and advising small to large businesses in the areas of tax planning, tax minimization and tax return preparation. He has significant tax experience relating to manufacturing, real estate development and construction, hospitality and distribution industries, as well as individuals.

Alan Tien

General Partner, Hang10X Capital

Alan Tien

Alan guides our companies with strategic and e-commerce expertise.

Alan is experienced senior executive in Internet, e-commerce, Online Payments, Emerging Markets (APAC), and Strategy. I also have deep experience in Product Management, rooted in a strong understanding of technology. I have balanced my career between business and technology, large enterprises and internet startups, and East and West cultures.

Alex Iceman

CEO, Genium

Alex Iceman

Alex guides our companies with mobile app development expertise.

Experienced Sr. iOS Developer/System Architect. Designed and developed multiple mobile products.

Alex Lin

Enterprise Account Executive, Gong

Alex Lin

Alexandra Burbey

Investor, Sound Ventures

Alexandra Burbey

Alexandra Burbey is an investor with Sound Ventures and former Vice President at G Squared, a growth stage venture fund focused on investing in both primaries and secondaries across four main megatrends: Consumer Internet, SaaS, FinTech, and Mobility 2.0. Alexandra joined G Squared shortly after the closing of the firm’s 5th Fund, a vehicle of $1.4B in late 2020. At G Squared, Alexandra primarily focused on application software, with an emphasis in Consumer and Vertical Software. Highlights in her portfolio include Bombas, goop, Knowde, Lucid Software, PandaDoc, Sunbit, and Maisonette. Prior to G Squared, Alexandra spent several years in M&A at DBO Partners. Alexandra began her career, and first gained an interest in the venture capital industry, from the other side of the table as the founder and CEO of Acuity for Moms, an HR and EdTech platform designed to help moms re-enter the workforce after taking time off to raise children. In her free time, she enjoys exploring San Francisco’s many restaurants and cafes, heading up to Tahoe to ski, or taking a quick trip to the beach to kayak or surf.

Amanda Ellis

Global Partnerships Snr Dir, ASU Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Lab

Amanda Ellis

Passionate proponent of sustainable development, women’s economic empowerment and leadership. Co-leading global coalition to support UN SDG 5. Board member of FINCA International (microfinance provider serving 2 million clients in 23 countries), UN Women’s Empowerment Principles, Hawaii Green Growth, Institute for Climate & Peace. Best selling author (two Random House business books), yoga teacher, avid hiker/snowskiier and novice surfer.

Andrew Radin

Managing Partner, Kakaʻako Research

Andrew Radin

MIT-trained biotech entrepreneur. Co-Founder Aria Pharmaceuticals (FKA twoXAR) – AI drug discovery company. Currently working on a new biotech company.

Venture Partner at Awaken Capital – we invest in early-stage, tech-enabled platform companies using innovation to address some of the world’s toughest challenges.

Entrepreneurship coach. Actively associated with MIT Bootcamps, MIT STEX25, Stanford StartX Med, University of Hawaii, Ka Maka ʻĪnana, and Blue Startups.

Industry & alumni community organizer.

Andy Yoo

Account Innovation Leader, EY Japan

Andy Yoo

Andy has over 10 years of professional experience in Big 4 accounting and consulting services for commercial, financial services, and life sciences industries. Currently, he is leading innovation for life sciences companies by supporting teams to integrate digital and design into projects. He started his career at the accounting department of a Hollywood talent agency in Los Angeles. He moved to Japan and worked at KPMG as an accounting advisor, where he gained deep accounting knowledge in US GAAP, IFRS, and JGAAP and skills in project management. After, he gained experience at EY as an auditor for a major Japanese bank. As the demand for innovation increased for Big 4 firms, he helped launch EY wavespace as a founding member gaining experience with digital and design.

Anish Srivastava

Founder & CEO, Vinaj

Anish Srivastava

Results driven entrepreneurial executive with 20+ years of experience. Diverse background managing commercially viable innovation in technology, product strategy, product management, operational planning and strategic partnerships.

Frequently invited speaker, consultant and advisor to startups with a passion for innovation strategy and execution.

At home with startups and fortune 500 companies.

International experience (lived and/or worked in NA, LATAM, EMEA & APAC).

Fluent in English, French, Hindi and Portuguese.

NextBank San Francisco Chapter Lead

Arjun Dev Arora

Managing Partner, Format One

Arjun Dev Arora

Arjun is the Founder of Format One. He advises funds, startups, LPs and Fortune 100 companies. His core areas of support for startups include strategy, GTM, product, monetization, and fundraising. He is an active individual investor in startups and venture funds. He has invested early in companies including but not limited to Lyft, RapidAPI, Branch, Flexport, Virta Health, Ashby, Truebill, Anduril, Ethic, Notion, Elroy Air and many more. Prior to founding Format One, Arjun was In Residence at Expa, a Partner at 500 Startups (actively investing and responsible for fundraising for the firm), Founder & CEO of ReTargeter (acquired by Sellpoints in 2015), head of business development @ Yahoo! Real Estate and an investment banker with Jefferies Broadview. He was also the Chairman of the Board of the Saint Francis Foundation (a $100M+ Cambridge Associates managed foundation) and sat on it’s investment and grants committees. Arjun has spoken about entrepreneurship internationally (Europe, Asia, and the Middle East), and was recognized at the: White House, United Nations (UN), and the Global Summit for Entrepreneurship, for his successes and commitment to a values-centered organization. He also holds a BSc, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science / Entrepreneurship & Technology from UC Berkeley.

Ash Archibald

GTM Operations, DigitalOcean

Ash Archibald

Revenue Ops Optimization Expert. Metrics Driven Growth Hacker. 17+ years tech RevOps experience Selected Results – Series A → B, $3 to 12M ARR in 1 year with usage based model – Series B → C, $80 to 250M ARR in 1 year + $10M incremental pipeline – Post-IPO, $300 to 1000M ARR + channel ARR from $20 to 150M in 3 years.

Ashley Lukens, PhD

Executive Director, Frost Family Foundation

Ashley Lukens, PhD

Ashley Lukens, PhD is an independent philanthropic and development advisor in Hawaii and Oregon. She has worked in and with the impact sector in Hawaii since 2006 as the founder of the Hawaii Food Policy Council, owner of Baby Awearness, the Director of the RISE Program at Kupu, and the Director of Hawaii Center for Food Safety, and today as the Executive Director of the Frost Family Foundation. Her work with the Hawaii Center for Food Safety earned national recognition, resulting in a cascade of new pesticide regulations. She has a degree in Women Studies and Economics from Vassar College and a PhD in Political Science from the University of Hawaii at Manoa where she examined culturally appropriate strategies for food system transformation. Currently Ashley’s passion project is a women’s learning circle, Project Thesis. Ashley is a proud cancer thriver and her commitment to holistic health and well-being knits her personal and professional life together.

Belmer Negrillo

Director of Design Innovation, Wells Fargo

Belmer Negrillo

I’m passionate about bringing technology closer to how people think and feel, translating emerging technologies into emotional and functional experiences that improve people’s lives. I have over 20 years of experience shaping and launching 0-1 consumer projects in collaboration with hardware/software engineering and product management. I brought to market engaging products leveraging AR, ML, real-time video, service design, hardware, and a solid user-centered process. I am recognized as a creative thought leader, considering cultural, business, and technological shifts to propose and influence product and strategic thinking at the leadership level. I held leadership positions at Meta Reality Labs, IDEO, DDB, eBay, and various startups. I hold over ten patents and have published work in several books and magazines. Since 2015, I have been a mentor to Italian startups through the Turin Chamber of Commerce program for entrepreneurs.

Ben Ahn

Partner, And1 Advisors

Ben Ahn

After 10 years of President’s Clubs, top performer awards, sales leadership, and several successful acquisitions, I’m adding consulting and training to my list of adventures. Couldn’t be happier to have shifted my attention to nimble and practical solutions that make sense for clients and end clients. Living in Hawai`i isn’t the worst part of the gig either, and while I do spend a lot of my time in the air, I love calling the islands my home. I look forward to discussing your business challenges or celebrating your wins with you!

Bernard Huang

Founder, Clearscope and Mushi Labs

Bernard Huang

Bernard Huang is co-founder of Mushi Labs and Clearscope, the leading SEO optimization software for high-quality content teams, and a Growth EIR at 500 Startups. Before Clearscope, Bernard started an SEO consulting agency, was a growth advisor in residence at 500 Startups, and led growth at a YC startup called 42Floors.

Bernard Mendez

Founder, Interco.ai and Partner, Valorous

Bernard Mendez

Based in Maui, Bernard brings a unique blend of leadership and technical expertise to the team. His journey as a creator began at 11 when he programmed his first website and at 16 with his first video game. The joy of seeing others enjoy his creation fueled his passion for building software that enables millions to unleash their creativity. As a former Captain in the US Army Special Operations, he learned the art of leading small teams to accomplish challenging goals. Transitioning to the corporate world, Bernard was a PM at Amazon in downtown Seattle, where he played a pivotal role in developing their new recruiting software. This experience honed his skills in building customer-centric products. He now helps founders solve tough technical problems and build innovative software products.

Bernice Parsons

Co-Founder and President, Vertaccount Hawaii Inc. and General Partner, Hang10X Capital

Bernice Parsons

Bernice guides our companies with Entrepreneurship expertise.

Bernice Parsons is Co-Founder and President of Vertaccount, a leading provider of outsourced accounting services.  Founded in 2010, Vertaccount has offices in Honolulu, Manila, Sydney and Los Angeles and provides global accounting support to several business across a broad range of industry verticals. Bernice is a seasoned entrepreneur with more than 15 years managing start ups and the back office operations of mature enterprises. Prior to founding Vertaccount, also co-founded MontPac Outsourcing, GetAsia.com and Localvibe.com.  Bernice holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Ateneo de Manila University.

Bill Bryant

General Partner, Threshold Ventures

Bill Bryant

William (Bill) Bryant has had early and instrumental involvement in >25 leading enterprise & consumer software and Internet companies, serving as founder, senior exec, investor & BOD member.

Blaine Kaho’onei

Founder, Growth Elements

Blaine Kaho’onei

Blaine Kahoʻonei is a native Hawaiian entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist. He has a 20+ year career working in technology startups holding a variety of individual and leadership roles, most notably at a then pre-IPO now a successful global enterprise software company, Salesforce. In his spare time, Blaine volunteers as a lead mentor at Blue Startups Hawaiʻi; consults with tech and non-tech businesses on growth strategies implementing practices taken from experiences the high growth, fast paced tech industry; and continues to empower the local Hawaiʻi Community with career awareness, insights, and guidance on opportunities through the technology industry.

Brandon Park

Executive Director, Morgan Stanley

Brandon Park

Managing partner of wealth advisory team specializing in services dedicated to entrepreneurs: late stage growth capital (equity and debt), M&A, tax and exit planning strategies. Major in computer science and minor in entrepreneurial and strategic management.

Brent Freeman

Founder & President, Stealth Venture Labs & Stealth Impact Labs

Brent Freeman

Brent Freeman is a serial entrepreneur who’s passionate about using business to generate both profits & social impact. While at USC, he launched a commodities trading firm with offices in Dubai & LA where the goal was to make as much money as fast as possible. After doing exactly this, he quickly realized that money alone does not bring happiness. So in 2009, he dedicated his life to using for-profit businesses to create real social impact in the world and founded Roozt.com with a vision of connecting the millennial online shopper with fashion forward, socially conscious brands.

As one of the pioneering advertisers on Facebook, Roozt grew into an industry leading, seven figure revenue platform with a community of over 250k people that donated a meal to Americans in need for every member who joined. Roozt was a “2011 Forbes Name You Need To Know” and was featured on the The Today Show, INC.com, Mashable, Huffington Post, NBC, & ABC.

In 2014, Brent founded Stealth Venture Labs with the vision of creating a turnkey, digital marketing team-for-hire that helps subscription brands find product market fit, push through growth plateaus & integrate social good into their business models. In the last 7 years, Stealth has generated over $750M in recurring revenue for its brand partners and manages over $20M+ per month in media spend for brands like Hello Fresh, Factor_75, MUD\WTR, Crocs and many more. As a 100% remote organization since 2014, Stealth attracts some of the best digital marketing talent from orgs like Facebook, Thrive Market, JustFab, Retention Science, & Uber and has let everyone work from home before it was en-vogue!

In 2018, Brent launched the Stealth Impact Lab as a 501c3 non-profit org that provides $5000 grants to inner-city teenage entrepreneurs in the US from disadvantaged backgrounds. Brent has written for Entrepreneur and Inc and speaks all over the US on topics like social entrepreneurship, including a TEDx on social enterprise. Brent lives in Lake Tahoe full time and in Italy 2-3 months per year where is a co-founder in a business called NonnaLive that live streams pasta making classes with real Italian grandmothers from a little village outside of Rome. For every class we teach, we donate a meal to a family in need.

In 2020, Brent was appointed a Knighthood (Cavaliere) and invited to become a member of the Royal House of Savoy by Prince Emanuele Filiberto of the Italian Royal Family, House of Savoy, in recognition of Brent’s 15+ year dedication to social enterprise using for profit businesses to create social impact.

Brian Kirsch

Senior Software Architect, Apple Inc. (Retired)

Brian Kirsch

25 year veteran of the technology industry. Spent the last 14 amazing years working remotely for Apple from Hawaii focusing on cloud infrastructure and device development.

Strengths include deep technical design and project management.

Brian Ng

Director, Partner Engineering Meta

Brian Ng

With extensive experience spanning diverse environments from startups to big tech, I’ve developed a profound understanding of the software engineering landscape. At Meta, I’ve led partner-facing engineering teams focused on building thriving developer ecosystems in media and gaming. My journey reflects a commitment to driving collaboration and innovation in the software industry.

Brian Rabben

Founder & Managing General Partner, Rabben Hood Ventures

Brian Rabben

A growth marketing veteran, serial entrepreneur, and angel investor, Brian has been helping companies of all sizes/stages* grow (harder, better, faster, stronger!) since 2005. In 2015, Brian founded Growth Wizards, a full-service marketing agency. He’s also an angel investor through Rabben Hood Ventures.

Brian Rose

Senior Producer, Niantic, Inc.

Brian Rose

It’s time to move.

Brian Samson

Founder & Chairman, Plugg Technologies and General Partner, Hang10X Capital

Brian Samson

Brian Samson is the Co-Founder and President of True North, an angel-funded FinTech company with 70+ team members. Prior, he held key leadership or exec roles for several tech startups based in San Francisco, 3 of which experienced successful exits. Brian’s expertise lies in building and scaling teams in tight labor markets. He has MBAs from both UCLA Anderson and National University of Singapore. He lives full-time on Oahu with his wife Christie, and travels to San Francisco and Buenos Aires frequently for business.
Other key experiences include:
– Raised $2m as a founder, grew the company to 80 team members
– Dept Head at Lending Club during pre-ipo (IPO’d at $10 billion valuation)
– Exec team at Sosh (acquired by Postmates and eventually Uber)
– General Partner of Hang10X Capital (micro-PE) with dozens of investments
– UCLA Anderson MBA graduate
– 4X Head of Talent for VC funded tech companies

Bryan Cheung

Principal, KongBasileConsulting

Bryan Cheung

Bryan guides our companies with accounting and finance expertise.

Bryan is an accounting and finance professional with experience in accounting, financial planning and analysis, financial due diligence, acquisition integration, and internal and external financial reporting.  He currently works at Kong Basile Consulting (KBC) as a Senior Manager where he focuses on accounting and finance needs for tech start ups primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Prior to KBC, he worked in the audit practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in the Life Science and Venture Capital group in San Jose, CA.

Buddy Arnheim

Founding Partner, Lobby Capital

Buddy Arnheim

For more than 25 years, Buddy has been funding, building, and advising a panoply of early stage technology companies ranging from: consumer facing services like OpenTable, TicketsNow, Trulia, Quizlet, HotelTonight, and Mystery Science; to FinTech / InsureTech platforms like Hippo Insurance and Lively HSA; to enterprise solutions like Cloudera, Box, and SentinelOne; as well as hardware and deep tech businesses like Skydio, R-Zero Systems, Level Home and SpinLaunch. Buddy has been involved in the launch of dozens of ventures across the technology spectrum.

Prior to Lobby Capital, Buddy founded and ran the Perkins Coie’s Emerging Company and Venture Capital Practice, managed Orthogonal Ventures, an early stage investment fund, and co-managed a late stage venture investment fund, Hut8 Ventures.

Buddy has also been an operator and innovator in the robotics, computer vision and aerospace domains. He was the co-founder of solar-powered atmospheric satellite company, Titan Aerospace, which was acquired by Google in 2014, and an early advisor to SpinLaunch.

Buddy holds a BS with a concentration in finance from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and a JD from the University of Illinois, where he teaches a course on entrepreneurship.

Burt Lum

State Digital Equity Coordinator, State of Hawaii

Burt Lum

Burt Lum is the State of Hawaii’s State Digital Equity Coordinator in the Hawaii Broadband & Digital Equity Office dedicated to digital equity and ensuring that all Hawaii residents have access to robust, resilient, and affordable connectivity to the global broadband Internet. A few of the key projects Burt oversees is the development of the statewide digital equity plan, digital equity grants, the FCC Affordable Connectivity Program, the establishment and management of the Broadband Hui, indigenous broadband networks and the creation of Hawaii’s digital economy study. In 2022, Burt was recognized by the Benton Institute for Broadband and Society as the Digital Equity Champion of the Year.

He was previously the Executive Director of Hawaii Open Data, a non-profit dedicated to advancing the principles of open data/knowledge in Hawaii, including policy work and community collaborations. He has more than 30 years in Hawaii’s technology and telecommunications sector and is a frequent speaker and panelist on the topic of Information and Communication Technology (ICT).

At the City and County of Honolulu, he has worked with the City Council on their Digital Initiative including establishing Honolulu as a Bloomberg Philanthropies What Works Cities. Past engagements include founding member of the Innovation Center at HMSA, Senior Product Manager at Hawaiian Telcom, CEO/President of Hawaii data center startup and Sr.Marketing Manager at the Maui High Performance Computing Center.

Carlos Navarro

Consultant

Carlos Navarro

Carlos guides early stage companies with customer discovery, developing value propositions, technoeconomic modeling, grant writing, and storytelling / pitch development.

Carlos is a Ph.D. chemist from the University of Southern California who co-founded a clean-tech start-up seeking to scale and commercialize his research project improving carbon fiber recycling technologies. He is ready to leverage his experience as an Activate Fellow and NSF SBIR/STTR review panelist to help any early stage start-up seeking to bring form to your potentially revolutionary ideas, craft stories to excite others to join your effort, and help you hit the ground running.

Carlos Vadillo

Managing Partner, Mir Meridian

Carlos Vadillo

Carlos Vadillo is a lead in innovation, design, and strategy consulting with 16 years of experience. He is currently working with Stitched Insights, a Wharton Alumni Angels backed start-up focused on Natural Language Processing and Linguistic Demographics. Formerly, Carlos has worked with Silicon Valley Bank’s Venture Capital Group, the co-founder of the Trigger Point Collective, as well as the Co-founder/Co-CEO of Agribots, a webapp designed for cost accounting and activity tracking in agriculture. For this work, Carlos was selected for Start-up Chile, won the Grand Prize at UPenn’s Y-Prize Engineering Competition in 2014, received the Santander Venture Award in 2014, and the Wharton Innovation Award in 2015.

Carlos’s international experience has allowed him to become an expert in the Venture Capital space with a focus on Latin America, Japan, and Asia. While with Silicon Valley Bank, Carlos has hosted talks focusing on the State of Climate Tech, the Future ofClean Tech, and Venture Capital with a LatAm focus.

His education includes a B.A. from UC Berkeley in Political Economy with emphasis on Japanese and Italian, an MBA from The Wharton School focusing on innovation and entrepreneurship, and an MA from the University of Pennsylvania in International Area Studies with an emphasis in Japanese. Carlos is a full stack web developer, with skills on both the front-end and back end. Javascript, Node.js, Apollo Server, MySQL, and front-end design. Carlos is fluent in Spanish, English, Japanese, and Italian and is currently learning Mandarin Chinese and Russian.

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