Hawaii Tech Week features 50+ events promoting opportunities in local innovation economy

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Hawaii Tech Week is set to kick off Monday, bringing together more than 5,000 entrepreneurs, government officials and investors across Honolulu for over 50 events aimed to explore opportunities in Hawaii’s innovation economy.

Read more Community gathers for 50th annual Honolulu Intertribal Powwow at Magic Island

Local and global leaders and companies — including ​Purple Maia, Guy Kawasaki, Google, Github and Microsoft — will host meetups, mixers, panels and workshops through Sept. 6.

Nonprofit Hawaii Women in Tech is hosting three events on Tuesday at the Entrepreneurs Sandbox in Kakaako, aimed to connect women to jobs, training and each other.

“We think you don’t have to be in tech to be to to join us and become a member because we’re all exploring AI together and everyone, all of our members coming from so many different fields, we’re all working with AI in one way or the other,” said Dr. Sandra von Doetinchem, president of Hawaii Women in Tech.

Other events bring students and young professionals face to face with industry executives.

“There’s not often opportunities for CEOs, tech leaders, people working in machine learning and AI to kind of take off their leadership hats and just sit down with the students that are growing up right now and have those frank conversations,” said Gabriel Yanagihara, an emerging technology teacher at ʻIolani School.

Read more First Waianae EMT cohort graduates through Kapiolani CC program

On Wednesday, Iolani School will celebrate the opening of its new A-I lab, which aims to train the next generation how to use emerging technologies responsibly.

“We have all this job disruption, we have all this like amazing opportunity but risk at the same time,” Yanagihara said.

An executive forum on Monday aims to bridge tech, industry, venture capital and government. Topics to be covered include the following:

Explore and register for the scheduled free and paid events at more than 30 venues across Honolulu by going to hawaiitechweek.com.

Read more Sen. Schatz, local leaders discuss expanding Native Hawaiian housing access