Volunteered at our very successful TEDxHonolulu 2016 event at the Blaisdell Concert Hall. This year’s theme was “Flow.” It was one of our better events for attendees due to the rich interactive exhibits. Included were a DJ, an artist, a makerspace, and foreign games.

I was able to recruit a couple of our high school students to volunteer. They did an amazing job of leading adults in interactive games. They were also introduced to some very inspiring people in the community. It was a great opportunity.

My job was to take care of the beans. Hehe. They were termed, flow-tokens or “flowkens.” Attendees were designated a team color. They collected flowkens by participating at the different stations. The team that accumulated the most flowkens would win an invitation to an afterparty and a discount to next year’s event. I tabulated the flowken standings after each break.

There was a great variety of talks. We had an artist, oceanographer, musician, and aerialist, to name a few. TED Talk videos were also screened in between.

We had a blast. It was an amazing day of learning new ideas and meeting new people. #TEDxHNL

TEDxHonolulu was held today at the historic Hawai’i Theatre in Chinatown. The theme was entitled “Cultivating Community.”

This year, I was a volunteer instead of an attendee. I volunteered from 7am to 6pm. The staging area was across the street at The Arts at Marks Garage. We also brought our officers from our TEDxYouth@Kamehameha student club.

I was assigned to the production crew as a stagehand. My key responsibility was to make sure that Kenny Endo’s taiko drum did not fall off of the hydraulic platform.

Registration was staged outside at the Sun Yat Sen Memorial Park, behind the old Indigo Restaurant.

The event got kick-started with a traditional dragon dance. There was a great lineup of speakers. Unfortunately, I spent most of the time backstage. Fortunately, I got to see the production side of things. The production team was very professional. I also met a lot of nice people. It was interesting to see that accomplished speakers get nervous too.

“Lunch roulette” was a cool concept. Your lunch ticket was good at participating restaurants in the Chinatown area. Each had a choice of three different menu items. I selected HASR Bistro because of its charming courtyard. I had always passed by on my Saturday morning walks. The Pesto Chicken Carbonara was ono.

The highlight for me was seeing our students experience real-world learning. They were awesome! They were also able to collaborate with students from Punahou and ‘Iolani. We are very grateful to have had this opportunity.

The afterparty was held at theVenue at BambuTwo Café and sponsored by Toyota. It was a long, but an extremely worthwhile day.

Attended TEDxHonolulu today with two of my colleagues from school. Had an amazing time! The theme was City 2.0, and it was held at Disney’s Aulani Resort in Ko Olina. It was all about creating a better community and a brighter future. Here is the post of my highlights on my edublog.

This was my first visit to Aulani. At first, I wondered why the event wasn’t held in Honolulu….

But it was a really nice venue for an event such as this.

Even the food was great. Another highlight for me was meeting student representatives from TEDxYouth@Punahou. Looking forward to their event next April.

I especially loved TEDxHonolulu’s taste in art…. haha. This series of photos was taken at a TEDxHonolulu Salon event as part of the Inside Out Project.

The event was absolutely amazing and inspiring. There were so many great speakers and great ideas. The person who summed up the day for me was Natalie Ai Kamauu. After delivering a stunning musical performance she said, “To make a better future, we just have to be the best that we can be. Then our children will say, ‘I want to be just like her, or just like him….'”

Amen.