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At the conclusion of this past week’s Stanford Univ. Design Thinking Bootcamp at the Sheraton Waikiki, the energy and excitement was palpable. People felt they not only had a tool they would take back to their organizations but there was a groundswell of support that they could tap.

The Design Thinking initiative in Hawaii started in September 2010 when Oceanit brought Larry Shubert from Zip Innovations here for a one day workshop. Larry was formerly a principal with IDEO and leveraged the concepts that came out of there and the Stanford d.school. After all, they are related through David Kelley who is the founder of IDEO and head of the d.school. The September workshop was energizing and it would have been disappointing had that initial momentum been lost over time.

In parallel but on a somewhat different track the University of Hawaii created the Innovation Council and held a Symposium on Innovation in January 2011. At the conclusion of the Symposium the Council submitted their recommendations on innovation. They included:

1. Identify Research as an Industry in Hawaii
2. Establish HiTEx (Hawaii Innovation Technology Exchange)
3. Identify Key Areas for Commercialization Opportunities
4. Integrate Entrepreneurship into the Curriculum

It would seem Design Thinking is related to if not tightly coupled with recommendation 4, to Integrate Entrepreneurship into the Curriculum of the University.

In April 2011, organizers, Oceanit, HTDV and the Inovi Group started to conduct the Design Thinking Wallet Challenge. The Wallet Challenge was a half-day introduction to the process of Design Thinking. Sessions were conducted for Dept. of Education teachers on Oahu and Maui, private schools including Iolani and Punahou and tech companies participating in TechEnterprise 2011. The Wallet Challenge workshops were a lead in to the Design Thinking Bootcamp that just concluded last week.

It is encouraging to see the dots connecting. There are discussions taking place to have a follow up Design Thinking workshop in the summer of 2012. But between now and then there are opportunities to practice what was taught in the Bootcamp. Let’s see what flowers bloom from the seeds just planted.

Both Admiral Willard and President Greenwood admitted when the group first got together in January 2011, both organizations were apprehensive about how this relationship would take shape, if at all. Historically the relationship between the University of Hawaii and the U.S. military has seen it’s ups and downs.

President Greenwood said, “We are the two most influential and powerful institutions in the State of Hawaii, and yet we have not found the ways and connections to work together.” But as a result of the conference in January, the two groups were able to craft a framework for an ongoing partnership. Colleagues commented later to Greenwood that this should have been done a long time ago.

The MOU identified three key area for immediate focus: Energy, Water and Disaster Management. Some of near term partnering areas include:

1. Examine implementing alternative energy sources for PACOM installations and on certain humanitarian assistance projects;
2. Leverage UH capability and training to complement and support PACOM roles in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief work around the region;
3. Build on UH and PACOM capabilities in a variety of water projects, particularly leveraging interests in the lower Mekong;
4. Define partnership projects in some aspect of ocean fisheries and maritime security.

They each emphasized taking immediate action on near term projects so that the success of working together would create traction. One project that comes to mind is the School of Nursing working with the Pacific Partnership and the hospital ship USN Mercy.

Key members of the steering committee include Rear Admiral Robin M. Watters, Dr. Rich Berry for PACOM and Dr. Gary Ostrander and Dr. David Lassner for the Univ. of Hawaii. It will be interesting to see what projects result from this relationship and whether or not they achieve the traction needed to keep a partnership like this viable over the years. If they can accomplish this Hawaii will certainly benefit.

* Photo courtesy of Dallas Nagata White

This year’s Hawaii State final took place on March 5th on the campus of Leeward Community College. As its name implies, the Science Olympiad is an olympics-styled competition but rather than physical activities student teams compete in topics like astronomy, optics, geology, biology, etc. Although most of the competitions are closed to public viewing (to minimize participant distraction) there are several like the bottle rocket launch where the public is welcomed. In this exercise, plastic soda bottles are used to design a rocket that gets pumped with 75 lbs of air pressure and launched into the air. The competitive measure was how long the rocket stayed in the air. Students could use basic materials to design fins and a cone as well as the right water to air mixture for propellent.

Two other publicly viewable competitions included the mousetrap vehicle and tower building, each intense in its own way. This year’s competition drew 48 teams, up from 23 last year. Teams came from all over the state, both public and private schools. Congratulations go out to Iolani School and Maui Preparatory Academy who placed first in the the high school and middle school divisions, respectively.  Both teams will represent Hawai‘i at the National Science Olympiad Tournament at the University of Wisconsin in May.

Franklin Allaire is the tireless director of this program and along with him is an army of coaches, judges, mentors and volunteers that make this program the success that it is. This group of people deserve a big round of thanks for encouraging a new generation of kids to explore and discover the limitless world of science and technology.

This year’s theme was medical related with challenges simulating a rapid blood screening, artery stent, cardiac missions, brain missions, bionic eyes, etc. Teams must design, build, test and program an autonomous robot to accomplish the Challenge Mission on the playing field. The game is based on a point system and each team has three qualifying rounds. Each round is 2:30 minutes long.

In the video students from Pauoa Elementary School program their robot to perform predefined tasks. Once activated the robot is autonomous, functioning without remote controls. Each team is allowed only two members at the playing field at a time although they can switch out by tagging one of their members.

Aaron Dengler, science teacher at Punahou School told me that FLL is less about robotics and more about engineering and team work. Each of the robot kits include a controller, sensors, mechanics and power. Bringing it all together is an engineering task. In addition to the design, testing and performance, each team has to research the theme and do a presentation to a panel of judges. Months of planning and activities lead up to the FLL Championship. I was quite impressed with the enthusiasm each of these young teams demonstrated and felt reassured that this program is an excellent feeder into futures in science and technology.

This story ran in the Star Advertiser on Friday and given my fascination with ships and planes I had to see if the Kaiyu Maru was still docked at Aloha Tower. On my morning run I detoured to Aloha Tower Marketplace and sure enough it was still there. My plan was to try and get a tour of the ship but that did not pan out. Trying to board a foreign ship at the last minute, literally hours before they leave is futile. But I did get to meet the Roosevelt High School students, Krista Ann Lee and Ronald Li along with their teacher Jennifer Williams as they made their last minute foray into town to buy a case of diet Coke.

The threesome are on their way to Fukuoka, a 17 day trip on the training vessel Kaiyu Maru. They, along with 60 other Japan students will journey the western Pacific on the 223 foot vessel. Judging from their blog post, the first day at sea was a struggle with seasickness. It will be interesting to follow along with their adventure on the high sea. Stay tuned as I have asked Jennifer and her students to join us on Bytemarks Cafe on Dec 15th to share with us their once in a lifetime experience.

Joe Ciotti is the master of ceremonies for each of the showings. He adds a key dimension you won’t find in other traditional theaters. He is there as a greeter, mood setter and subject matter expert. He warmed up the opening night viewing of Tales of the Maya Skies with a demonstration of the new features of the Definiti 4 system. He flashed a 3D rendering of the Space Shuttle and then showed how, through the marvel of 3D modeling, you can venture into the bone structure of the human skull. It is easy to imagine worlds of the extremely small to those of galactic proportions opening up for viewing.

Opening with Tales of the Maya Skies introduced the audience to the capabilities of the system and the intricacies of putting a show like this together. In addition to a program rich in culture, images included animations of Mayan characters, 3D renderings of Maya structures and a story woven in science and legend. Tales of the Maya Skies is a Chabot Space & Science Center production with major funding provided by the National Science Foundation.

Judging from the Sky-Skan catalog of shows, there are a lot of interesting programs to look forward to. Titles like Solar Storms, Awesome Light and Black Holes: Journey into the Unknown need little fanfare to attract my attention. Awesome Light includes an entire episode from the telescopes on the summit of Mauna Kea:

Voyage into Subaru, Gemini, Keck, and Canada-France-Hawai‘i observatories to explore an exo-planet, supernova, and stars orbiting at the centre of the Milky Way and galactic survey.

Exo-planets, sign me up! Viewings of Tales of the Maya Skies continue through January 2011:

For tickets reservations and more information about the show, call Windward Community Collage at 808-235-7433.

In the afternoon, I got a chance to a hear Mid Pacific Institute teachers give examples of project-based learning in a presentation called: Embracing Change in the 21st Century, that got implemented in classes ranging from pre-school, elementary, middle to high school. Principal Edna Hussey did a timely job posting her overview of the presentations to the MPI blog. In one class example, Alison Ashford challenged her environmental studies high school students to build a layer in Google Earth showing the trees located around campus. You can try the resulting layer by downloading the .kmz file which automatically launches Google Earth. You can find more info here.

I also found it interesting how the organizers, the Hawaii Community Foundation, incorporated graphic recording into the presentations. They invited Nick Payne from England to do a graphic recording of each of the presentations in this breakout room. You can view the rendition of  Nick’s recordings here. Judging from the interest shown by the educators there was an overwhelming level of support for the visual presentation. It’s a great way to capture the essence of the presentation and offer a means to perpetuate it through the organization. I’ve seen the technique work first hand at the place I work.

Ongoing interaction of the Schools of the Future community continues on the Ning site at Future Schools. It is quite encouraging to see such dedicated, passionate teachers committed to education and the innovative process. Judging from the interaction the site, there is a groundswell of activity taking place in the schools.

On Thursday, Sept. 9th at 6pm, HMAUS presents a hands-on workshop on how to add Google Analytics code to your website. Marco Morawec, a Senior Research Associate at Kamehameha Schools will conduct the workshop. Marco did an earlier workshop on Aug 26 introducing the topic of Google Analytics and this is a follow on. In this upcoming session Marco will help you brainstorm some measurable goals for your site, then insert the code and see where and how the data will be displayed. This is hands on and you are encouraged to bring your laptop so you can DIY and see how it works. There is a nominal $5 charge at the door and you need to sign up here to guaranty your spot.

Then on Saturday, Sept 11, at 9am, HMAUS presents Joe Kissell, who will demonstrate iChat Theater for sharing presentations, videos, pictures and computer screens, from his home half way around the world in Paris, France! Joe will be live from Paris, a 12 hours time zone difference. Joe is also the Senior Editor of Tidbits magazine, one of the longest running online publications. This presentation is free and open to the public. If you are interesting in iChat Theater and MobileMe this is the place to be.

Both presentations, Google Analytics on Sept 9th and iChat on Sept 11th will take place at ING Direct, 1958 Kalakaua Avenue Waikiki. Hope to see you all there.