Haumāna (students) from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Pacific Asian Center for Entrepreneurship (PACE) participated in the inaugural PACE X Very50 Social Entrepreneurship Program, serving as PACE Cross-Cultural Ambassadors and collaborating with students from Meijo University in Nagoya, Japan, to identify local challenges in our Hawaiʻi community, analyze the challenges and come up with implementable solutions. Some of the issues included:
- Creating a beach advisory mobile app to show which beaches are safe and general information about a particular beach
- Reducing plastic waste to encourage people to recycle bottle caps to be repurposed for other items like asphalt. A bottle cap recycling station was created at the Walter Dods, Jr. RISE Center.
- Since surfing is not always for beginners, creating educational opportunities or having a designated area for beginner surfers in Waikīkī would help
- For tourists with young children, developing a sled type device to assist parents with pushing strollers on the beach
The PACE Cross-Cultural Ambassadors and the Meijo students worked together to conduct field research and interviews, and develop solutions and prototypes during many late-night sessions at the Walter Dods, Jr. RISE Center. The PACE X Very50 Social Entrepreneurship Program was an intensive one-week program that culminated with a showcase event at the RISE Center with each team presenting about their journey from challenge identification to innovative solution.
“It was really interesting to hear a variety of different perspectives from the international students on what they believed were problems here in Hawaiʻi—hearing things that I would have never thought about prior to working with them,” said PACE student Rochelle Jokura. “I also felt it was a good opportunity for me to sort of take a leadership-like role as they relied on me to take them around Hawaiʻi, and for providing suggestions for their project.”
Ryosuke Sugaya, co-founder and CEO of Very50, a social enterprise accelerator based in Tokyo, led the program for the Meijo University students and brought this opportunity to PACE. Very50 provides “on the ground” experiences for students, which aim to foster collaboration and tackle real social challenges in Asia-focused regions.
“Very50’s program aligns with PACE’s mission of educating innovative problem-solvers,” said Sandra Fujiyama, executive director of PACE. “Through this collaboration with Ryosuke and Very50, our PACE Cross-Cultural Ambassadors benefited from the unique educational opportunity offered by Very50, working alongside the Meijo University students to tackle real-world challenges and transforming into innovative-problem solvers in the process.”
The PACE Cross-Cultural Ambassadors involved were Jokura, Matthew Andres, Noah deMers, A’Marie Paraso, Sho Matsumoto, Ryan Nishizaki and Abigail Vanblaricom-Nutt. PACE Leader Shota Ichitaku spearheaded this collaboration on behalf of PACE, taking the lead on organizing the effort with Sugaya and Very50, with assistance from Aimie Katayama.
PACE is housed in the UH Mānoa Shidler College of Business.
