Chaminade University of Honolulu

CIFAL Honolulu

‘Inana Innovators Program

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Chaminade students participate in sustainability entrepreneurship

Madison Makishima ’25 was able to make adaptive surfboards out of recyclable materials and ocean plastics so people —like her—with disabilities could have access to the ocean. As part of Chaminade University’s ‘Inana Sustainability Entrepreneurship Program, Makishima and eight other fellow students, including Aleeyah Lemons ’24 and Carly Wieczorek ’24, were able to participate in a 10-week summer program that paired them with businesses that align with the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).  

“I learned a lot, especially how to effectively network,” said Makishima, whose project was titled Surf Sesh. “The mission of the project—which aligns with the UN’s SDGs—was to help people with disabilities gain access to surfing while recycling and reusing ocean plastic, and educating everyone about living sustainable lives.”  

After winning a two-year $600,000 Minority Colleges and Universities Grant Competition from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA), a hui of Chaminade professors developed the ‘Inana Sustainability Entrepreneurship Program, which aims to spark minority entrepreneurial innovation among Hawaii-Pacific undergraduates.

According to ‘Inana Sustainability Entrepreneurship Program’s coordinator, Mariane Uehara, the  three goals of the program are: 1) To develop and implement programs for the education and training of undergraduate students in subjects directly relating to successful entrepreneurship; 2) To support minority business enterprises (MBEs), including building a diverse entrepreneurial pipeline to grow the number of MBEs; and 3) to create a UN Certificate program in sustainability entrepreneurship.  

With the help of Rhea Jose, outreach coordinator for CIFAL Honolulu at Chaminade, Aleeyah Lemons ’24 pursued a project titled “Gender Equity through Malama Mai” or, cleverly, GEMM, and provided menstrual products in the women’s restrooms at Chaminade University.  

“GEMM is a program developed to provide resources, care and education on menstrual health to those at Chaminade University, its surrounding community and across the Pacific,” wrote Lemons in her final report. “We aim to end period poverty on campus, and allow our students who menstruate to feel comfortable and supported by GEMM and their peers.”  

Meanwhile, Carly Wieczorek ’24 designed a sustainable rooftop hydroponics system. “One major aspect of my activities was actively participating in exchanging ideas with local experts on hydroponics farming, visiting hydroponics farms on Oahu, and entrepreneurial skill workshops with industry professionals,” Wieczorek noted. “I’ve also been investigating innovative business approaches to urban agriculture, such as rooftop hydroponics, and examining how these practices align with the UN’s SDGs.”  

The focus of the ‘Inana program is to nurture sustainability entrepreneurs in Hawaii, who will develop businesses that diversify and grow our economy while attending to the health of the planet. This, of course, is consistent with Chaminade’s United Nations CIFAL Center, which is focused on supporting progress toward the UN’s 17 SDGs in Hawai‘i and the Pacific region.  

Three of the 17 SDGs in particular are addressed within the program: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all; build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation; and improve education, awareness-raising and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning.  

“Our first cohort consisted of nine students,” said Uehara, a Certified Health and Wellness Coach and former co-founder and director of Lanikai Juice Co. “This second cohort will focus on App creation with eight students. It’s great to see students—who all come from different disciplines—collobarate and solve problems.”

Dean’s Speaker Series

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Eric Fujimoto ’94 advises students to persevere and show humility

The best rate of return and the stock market ticker symbol to keep a close eye on is YOU or ME. Sage advice from Ho‘ea Wealth Advisory Group Principal Eric Fujimoto, the guest speaker of the School of Business and Communication’s inaugural Dean’s Speaker Series. In his address to students, the 1994 Chaminade MBA graduate and Board of Regents member advised attendees to double down and invest in themselves.  

“There is nothing wrong with making money,” said Fujimoto, who was ranked Barron’s Top 1,200 Financial Advisors and #1 in Hawai‘i and Forbes Best-in-State Wealth Advisors from 2018-2023. “But, do it ethically and use it to better your community. Shift the focus from money to people.”  

The Dean’s Speaker Series is designed to bring private, nonprofit and public sector leaders who have achieved recognition in their respective fields to share their expertise and insights on a broad range of timely issues, as well as share the highlights, challenges and turning points of their individual career paths.

The intent of the forum is to bring a diversity of social, cultural, economic and other business-related perspectives to the Chaminade community in order to engage in ways that inform and encourage sustainable business for good.  

Ho‘ea Wealth Advisory Group Principal Eric Fujimoto Eric Fujimoto shared his story and advice with students.

“The impetus for the Series is to provide co-curricular and extra-curricular opportunities for students to augment what they are learning in the classrooms with relevant and high-impact experiences,” said School of Business and Communication Interim Dean Annette Santos. “Ultimately, this event has an underlying call to action to students who are reminded that they are empowered to create a sustainable future that reflects the values and the priorities of their communities through the knowledge they glean from their educational experience at Chaminade.”  

Awarded the US Small Business Administration’s Small Business Person of the Year for the City and County of Honolulu in 2020, Fujimoto’s wealth of experience not only includes offering solid financial advice to his clients, but also serving as a member of various nonprofit organizations, including Drug Free Hawai‘i, Central Union Church and, one that he is particularly eager to help, Unity Prom, which is an effort to provide students with disabilities the experience of a normal high school prom.  

“We were the students and they were the teachers,” said Fujimoto, choking up in a video address that he played during his Monday evening talk. “The Ho‘ea Foundation is a proud sponsor of this event, which gives these high schools the chance to enjoy what other kids their age experience every year. And we’re always looking for dates, so if anyone wants to be a prom date, contact her—pointing to Jill Higashi, Chaminade’s Assistant Vice President of Advancement.”  

After Fujimoto’s talk, freshman baseball player Jacob Villacorte said he learned a lot, and the message of perseverance and giving back to the community especially meant a lot to him. “There were things I didn’t know about,” said Villacorte. “It was a good learning experience.”  

Consistent with Chaminade’s mission of community service, the Speakers Series is framed around the theme, “Sustainable Business for Good,” which also aligns with Chaminade’s CIFAL designation. Speakers are selected based on their demonstrated commitment to transforming lives and advancing communities.  

“I’ve had the privilege to visit other universities, but Chaminade is the only one where you feel a sense of community that genuinely wants you to succeed,” Fujimoto said. “The people here care about you; they put great ideas in front of you; so you were right to choose Chaminade.”  

Santos hopes students will feel the same way after they attend the Speakers Series.  

“There are several takeaways that I hope will resonate with students,” Santos said. “The first is to be inspired by the personal and professional journey of the featured speakers in ways that enhance their educational experience; the second is to understand that personal and professional growth is a process that involves challenges and turning points on the way to wins and transformation; and the third is to provide opportunities for them to build their network, possibly creating meaningful connections with speakers or those in attendance.”  

Gesturing as if he was steering a car on the H-1 freeway, Fujimoto made one final point to the students: they are in the driver’s seat and they determine the course of their destiny. “If you were just to turn the car by one degree, what do you think would happen,” he posed to the students. “You will end up at a different destination.”        

Environmental Leaders

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Changemakers discuss their path to policymaking

One is nicknamed by her husband as the “Irresistible Force.” The other is known as “The Enforcer.” And the third has a spouse who wholeheartedly stands behind him—even if it means wielding a tire iron. Together, Althine Clark, Celeste Connors and William Aila, Jr., respectively, represent a “super power” to contend with when it involves environmental policy and activism in the islands.  

“The goal of this session is to have our guest speakers talk about how they got where they are today,” said Clark, a Chaminade adjunct professor who recently retired as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) superintendent of Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. “You’ll hear real-life examples of what it’s like to live a life in environmental policy.”  

In his opening story, Aila recalled a time when he was young with a fervent commitment to do whatever it took to preserve the aina–even if it meant physical confrontation. “I saw these three guys one day and I confronted them because they were mistreating a cultural site,” Aila shared with the students. “I asked them to stop and I started to move towards them. When you’re about to get into a fight, you look at the person’s eyes and then watch their shoulder. But these guys kept looking behind me so I thought I was going to be ambushed. And when I had a second to look back, I saw my wife standing there with a tire iron in her hands.”  

Today’s environmentalists are faced with many forms of violence—and even death at times. The non-governmental organization Standing Firm has published an annual report on the killings of land and environmental defenders around the world every year since 2012, after the murder of Chut Wutty, a Cambodian environmentalist who worked with the Global Witness CEO Mike Davis investigating illegal logging.  

While stationed in Greece as an economics officer with the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, Celeste Connors once remembered seeing a bullet lodged in her office window. “There was so much anti-American sentiment at the time,” said Connors, Executive Director of Hawaiʻi Green Growth, which is a United Nations Local 2030 hub that brings together diverse stakeholders committed to economic, social and environmental priorities. “But when I told them I was from Hawaii, everyone started reaching out because they can connect with Hawaii.”

Indeed, Hawaii holds a special place with Connors who decided to come home in 2015 after serving as a diplomat in Saudi Arabia, Greece, Germany and U.S. Mission to the UN. She later was named the Director for Environment and Climate Change at the National Security Council and National Economic Council in the White House (2008-2012), where she helped shape the Administration’s climate and energy policies, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Connors also worked with the United Nations on the Paris climate agreement that was signed in 2016, which she sees as inspiration for Hawai‘i Green Growth’s goals.  

“The world is at a point where we desperately need solutions,” Connors asserted. “Since I left home, there has been a cultural renaissance, and other nations are now looking to indigenous models, such as Hawai’s ahupua‘a system, to become sustainable and independent. Think locally but act globally.”  

With a background in urban and regional planning, Clark understands the complexity of environmental law and policy, a class (ENV 300) that she is currently teaching to sophomores and juniors. Her introductory course outlines environmental policy and law—specifically its nature, development, flexibility, and growth, and to the ethical dimensions surrounding the creation of state, national and international environmental policy and law.  

“No is not an option nor an answer,” Clark said. “I’m now seeing lots of communities get engaged. One of the reasons I agreed to teach at Chaminade is because the University encourages students to get involved in projects that benefit society.”  

Asked by a student how to deal with climate change deniers, Aila said try to first reason with them. “And if that doesn’t work, go around him, go above him, go below him,” he advised. “Don’t let anyone tell you, you can’t. Instead, use those words as a motivator, and go out and make a difference.”                

Enterprising Minds

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Teams to compete in Silversword Business Competition

Game on! In a Shark Tank-like competition, teams of students will compete in an entrepreneurial 18-week contest, vying for the grand prize of $2,000. The catch: the product or the service must have some element of sustainability.  

“Your idea has to address any of the CIFAL Center’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG),” explained Asoke Datta, EdD, School of Business and Communication’s Assistant Dean, outlining the competition’s rules. “It has to be profitable, not just in terms of revenue, but for the greater good of society.”  

Without revealing too much about her strategy, Carol Nacario ’23, a senior in the School of Business and Communication, is concerned with all the “waste” that she sees around her. The environment, like many in her generation—led by Greta Thunberg and the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led political organization urging increased attention to climate change—is an issue that needs to be kept in the forefront of people’s minds.  

Students participating in the Silversword Business Competition include, from left, Peyton Haleamau, Michalla Burtado, Alyssa Torres (kneeling), Emma Rosales and Carol Nacario.

“Deciding on a final project will be the most difficult challenge,” shared Nacario with other students who attended Day 1 of the competition. “My target audience will be the campus.”  

Academic competitions play an essential part in learning for students. Participation offers a hands-on opportunity for students to apply the knowledge and principles they have gained in the classroom and apply it to real-work situations. These competitions foster such skills as leadership, teamwork and communication. They can also be a great way to make new connections and friends.  

School of Business and Communication interim dean, Dr. Annette Santos, issued her first challenge to the students: recruit others to join their teams. “It can be a team of two to five students,” said Santos via a live video feed from Guam. “However, at least one of the team members has to be from the School of Business and Communication.”  

A business major, Peyton Haleamau ’25, convinced second year forensics science majors, Emma Rosales ’25 and Michalla “Meeks” Butardo ’25, to be on her team. Having never taken a business course, Rosales and Butardo consider their lack of entrepreneurial savvy as their major challenge.  

“We’ll be here as advisors and mentors,” marketing lecturer Wera Panow-Loui, MBA, told the students. “Last year, I opened my house up to a team of students who were producing jewelry out of microplastics reclaimed from the beach and in the ocean. And I also fed them.”  

Datta suggested to find team members who are in different disciplines, from art and interior design to nursing and data analytics. “You want a wider perspective than just business,” he said. “That’s what entrepreneurs do—they get creative. And, if they fail, what they learn from that failure determines how they succeed the next time.”

Each team will be given $250 seed money to use at its discretion. The School of Business and Communication’s Advisory Board members, who are providing the funding for the seed money, will also be available as mentors.  

When the competition was launched in 2021, the plan was to have students open and manage a pop-up concession on campus. Because COVID-19 was still a factor, another approach was decided: the School invited students to participate in a business competition that would allow them to show off their creativity, their ability to work with others and their aptitude in everything from marketing to accounting and customer service.  

“Think of this competition as an incubator of ideas,” said Dr. Eduard Merc, who is Chaminade’s MBA director. “You’ll have the chance to work alongside your professors and the opportunity for experiential learning that goes beyond theory.”  

Students’ final presentation will take place on Nov. 16. Each team will be assessed by sales/revenue, social media likes and shares, and their profit-and-lost statement.  

“And your business must align with the sustainable approach,” Santos emphasized. “In developing your business plan, take into account these considerations: 1) Identify future needs; 2) Identify technology to serve that need; and 3) How will you deliver the need, through what channels of distribution?”  

Their time starts now!    

NOAA B-WET Grant

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Managing Hawaii’s Watersheds

The first field site to Paiko Lagoon provided a chicken-skin moment when a longtime resident of the area, Kai Hoshijo, a volunteer crew member with the Polynesian Voyaging Society and the Maunalua Fishpond Heritage Center, reminisced about the stories of her youthful days spent at the Wildlife Sanctuary in East Oahu, evoking a navigator mindset of observance and respect for the ‘aina (land).

“Kai grew up in Niu Valley and was telling a story in context of the sanctuary’s meaningful location,” recalls Katrina Roseler, Ph.D., shuddering while she remembered that exact moment. “It was the perfect start to our two-week workshop, demonstrating the reverence of place.”

Thanks to a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Roseler and Environmental Sciences assistant professor, Lupita Ruiz-Jones, Ph.D., were able “to enhance the capacity of Hawaii’s secondary science teachers to engage their students in ahupua’a education and cultivate stewardship.” Ahupua’a is a Hawaiian term for a large traditional socioeconomic, geologic and climatic subdivision of land, which consists most frequently of a slice of an island that went from the top of the local mountain (volcano) to the shore, often following the boundary of a stream drainage.

Cultural Engagement Specialist, Kahoalii Keahi-Wood points out limu near the shoreline of Diamond Head.
Cultural Engagement Specialist, Kahoalii Keahi-Wood points out limu near the shoreline of Diamond Head.

The summer workshops align with NOAA’s Bay Watershed Education (B-WET) initiative, an environmental education program that promotes place-based experiential learning for K–12 students and related professional development for teachers.

“We had our own play on acronyms with B-WET,” says Roseler, the grant’s Co-Principal Investigator. “We appropriately named our program M2M:WET, which stands for Mauka to Makai: Watershed Experience for Teachers.”

Much like B-WET, M2M:WET aims to foster the growth of new, innovative programs, and encourages capacity-building and environmental education partnerships.

During the field experience, teachers explored two primary questions: 1) How do we determine the health of our watersheds (ahupua‘a); and 2) How can educators engage students in thinking critically about the flow of water and cultivate a sense of stewardship for Hawaii’s watersheds?”

“My observation of the participating teachers was that they were super excited and nerdy in a positive science way,” says Ruiz-Jones, the grant’s other Co-Principal Investigator. “They were like kids on field trips, and eager to use some of the equipment we provided, like the GoPro, water test kits and water loggers, which is an instrument that automatically and continuously records fluctuations in water level.”

Participants visited Lyon Arboretum for one of their many workshops.
Participants visited Lyon Arboretum for one of their many field trips.

The outcome of the workshops helped inform teachers how to bring their field experiences into the classroom and their curriculum. They gained skills in environmental data collection, lab protocols, data analyses and data visualization. Water samples were gathered at the various sites and analyzed for nitrogen compounds, sulfate, phosphate and silica, using an automated spectrophotometry, as well as SEAL AQ400 chemistry and equipment. And they also collected water temperature data with the HOBO Tidbit temperature logger and learned how to use readily available water test kits.

Among the 16 K-12 teachers, Christina Chan of Highlands Intermediate School says she decided to participate in the program because she focuses on watersheds, which is one of her primary foci for her CTE (Career and Technical Education) class next year.

Chan adds that she learned about the use of five different field sites for studying the watershed; how to use a HOBO, GoPro and other devices for sampling water in the watershed; different pedagogy and Understanding by Design models; and making connections with other teachers and ideas on how to share watershed information.

Hanalani Schools’ Jessica Mountz opted in because she wanted to connect with other science teachers on Oahu and the Neighbor Islands, reasoning that in her 20 years of teaching, she found that collaboration with other teachers has been the most valuable tool in her professional growth.

Participants learned how to collect data during the M2M:Mauka to Makai workshops.
Participants learned how to collect data during the workshops.

“At the end of each day, I went home with so many lesson ideas my head was sometimes spinning,” says the high school science teacher. “From Wayfinding/ Navigation to Ahupuaʻa of Hawai’i, I plan on developing curriculum for my Biology and Advanced Placement Biology students that not only meets Science Standards (Next Generation Science Standards and College Board), but incorporates Hawaiian culture and empathy.  I look forward to continuing conversations and collaboration, not only with the other science teachers from the M2M:WET workshop, but with the faculty/staff at Chaminade University, Huli, and Maunalua Fishpond Heritage Center.”

Since its inception in 2002, 929 B-WET grants have been awarded for a total of $117 million.  The B-WET program currently serves seven regions of the country: California, Chesapeake Bay, Great Lakes, Gulf of Mexico, Hawaii, New England and the Pacific Northwest. Regional B-WET programs provide tailored grantee support and capacity building. This allows B-WET to include place-based STEM resources and expertise, and respond to local education and environmental priorities.

“The goal is to provide support for our K-12 science teachers so they can teach their students to become the future stewards of the land,” says Ruiz-Jones, with Roseler adding that they “hope to engage the students to appreciate the mauka to makai value of their ahupua‘a.”

SPICE Institute Peppered with Data

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Monthlong seminar focuses on helping students understand data 

Data science continues to evolve as one of the most promising and in-demand disciplines, and budding data scientists are all too happy to explore the field … one byte at a time. Just ask Rylan Chong, Ph.D., Chaminade’s Data Science Program Director.

“Chaminade received approval in 2018 to launch a Data Science major, which was the first of its kind in Hawaii,” Chong says. “And we had our first cohort of 40-50 students in 2019. Now our classes are practically maxed out each semester.”

This summer, 35 students participated in the Supporting Pacific Indigenous Computing Excellence (SPICE) Data Science Summer Institute—from June 2-30—marking the largest number of participants since SPICE’s inception five years ago. Funded by a National Science Foundation grant, and in partnership with the Texas Advanced Computing Center, SPICE aims to level the playing field for Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI) students, who are woefully underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields, and specifically cutting-edge data science.

Of the 35 SPICE Data Science Institute participants, 19 of them were Silverswords.
Of the 35 SPICE program participants, 19 of them were Silverswords.

“We want to advance computing and data for social change and justice,” says Chong, who graduated with a bachelor’s in Computer Science from Chaminade in 2010, and with a doctorate in Information Security from Purdue University of West Lafayette in 2018. “We want to work with our community partners and upscale people’s knowledge about the use of data.”

SPICE participants include 22 undergraduate students from Hawaii, including 19 from Chaminade University. The remaining eight undergraduates hail from the Northern Marianas College (5), Mount Mercy University in Iowa, University of Portland and Guam Community College. Five undergraduate student mentors also were involved.

“Not to sound cliché, but data science is everywhere,” says Biology Assistant Professor Chrystie K. Naeole, Ph.D. “Students get to mesh science with data science, and to look at disparities among Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders.”

With one of the largest wealth gaps in the nation, high rates of incarceration, and high rates of illness and health disparity, Hawaii has a compelling need to address social justice issues. Students of Hawaiian descent have something they want to fix because they see the inequality every day in their families and their communities, from health and homelessness to the environment and sustainable energy.

Of the 35 SPICE Data Science Institute participants, 19 of them were Silverswords.
Participants collaborated on research projects even during lunch.

“Most people have a passion. Most people care about something significant, something that they have a personal connection to,” says Kelly Gaither, director of Health Analytics at TACC and Associate Professor in Women’s Health at the Dell Medical School. “When you have a personal connection, it’s like a glue. It allows other concepts that you need to stick. In the absence of that glue, students may not realize they’d be happy working in computer science or data science because of the way it’s taught and presented to them.”

Chong believes we already apply data science in our daily routines. We compare prices, for example, when we’re shopping for groceries. We’ll shop at stores that offer better deals. Think of Longs Drugs on a Sunday or Safeway on $5 Fridays. We compare quantity and quality, a generic brand versus brand name.

“You can apply data science to every field—education, healthcare and mental health, environment science and climate change, and criminal justice,” Chong explains. “It’s not just about crunching numbers, but ensuring the numbers reflect different viewpoints and getting those numbers into the right hands.”

A 2022 Chaminade University alumna with a degree in Data Science, Analytics and Visualization and one-time SPICE participant, Zoey Kaneakua is now a data analyst with the Department of the Attorney General’s Crime Prevention and Justice Assistance Division. And her job: To monitor crime statistics in Hawaii and to share the data with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), an incident-based reporting system in which law enforcement collects data on each crime occurrence.

Zoey Kaneakua '22 at her computer
Zoey Kaneakua ’22 now works for the Department of the Attorney General’s Crime Prevention and Justice Assistance Division

“That was my first independent research involving juvenile justice,” recalls Kaneakua of her participation in SPICE during her junior year. “And I think I built my first dashboard in three days using Python (a high-level, general-purpose programming language).”

Like Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) of the past, data science was barely mentioned a decade ago in scientific circles. Now it’s everywhere. In the same way that A.I. is an umbrella term for intelligence, Data Science is an umbrella term for insights from data.  Sometimes these two terms appear to be in conflict or competition, but this is not the case. The field of data and machine intelligence is vast and involves everything from understanding data to helping computers learn from the data and solve problems automatically using their learnings. Arguably, both Data Science and A.I. are critical for businesses and maintain a complicated symbiotic relationship.

“The underlying theme of SPICE is about building capacity and learning communities in the Pacific to harness the power of technology and data to address challenges,” Chong says, borrowing from the National Science Foundation’s Harnessing the Data Revolution initiative. “We focus on social aspects, applied ethics and responsibility working with people and data.”

In their final projects, SPICE participants studied various issues, from Indo-Pacific Resilience and Hawaii Biodiversity to Tax and Housing Equity and Health.

“All their projects were based on the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals,” Chong said. “These students upskilled in analytics, research and programming. We also had a lot of firsts this year. To name a few, it included an opportunity to use the TACC supercomputers at the University of Texas at Austin; we had technical directors who joined us in helping on sponsored projects; and three students presented their projects in their preferred or native language that included Spanish, Carolinian and Native Hawaiian.”