Hub Coworking Hawaii

Hawai‘i's Best Coworking Space

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Meet our Host Team!

Impact Hub HNL has a group of dedicated hosts that work with us to greet new members and facilitate an awesome member experience. Learn more about our team here:

Lawrence Basha

Lawrence retired after a long Army career and is transitioning into something different as a second act. He is interested in organizational development, strategic planning, fitness & healthy living, and progressive politics in Hawaii.

 

Miguel Castrence

Miquel is a geospatial data scientist and managing partner at Resource Mapping Hawaii, a small, locally owned and operated company specializing in aerial imaging and geographic information solutions. He conducts research on wide range of conservation technologies for environmental monitoring over remote landscapes. His latest passion project integrates machine learning and citizen science for mapping marine debris throughout the main Hawaiian islands.

Holger Heine

Holger and his partner Suzanne started Topos Productions in 1996. We worked with clients specializing in corporate events and digital media. Today, Topos Media creates apps, websites and e-books and we help clients with marketing services.

 

Jenn Jiron

Jenn is a graphic designer, illustrator and founder of Waves in Color (a creative atelier). Waves in Color combines Jenn’s East meets West design background and focuses on conveying and creating a visual presence for a wide range of clients ranging from start-ups to established companies. The spectrum of the atelier is wide and includes: brand identity, print/product design, web design, digital projects, pattern creation, illustration and much more. Jenn’s passions include traveling, playing the guitar and helping out in the community.

Joe Heaukulani

Joe describes himself as a Random Citizen helping to transform Hawaii’s communities through enhanced engagement and enduring empowerment. My passions are Technology and Farming, and I am currently skill-building in Amazon Web Services, Machine Learning, Mobile Development, and a small dash of video production on the side.

Ruby Menon

“I have been a host and part of the Hub movement ever since we opened up our doors at the old ProtoHub location on Keawe St. In my day job, I am the Product Manager for a local tech startup, JamBios. In my company, BrainSmart HR, I work with social impact entrepreneurs to provide product design consulting using a behavioral science approach. I also teach Design Your Life by Creating New Habits classes at the Hub. A few years ago, I implemented an Inmate Art project called CARE that works with incarcerated women artists at WCCC. The CARE project promotes and sells their art and craft products so they can earn money for their transition back to the community. I am still involved in this social enterprise project and am always looking for opportunities to promote these talented women’s art work.

Danyale Thomas Ross

Danyale is Founder and Head Instigator in Charge and Mindset Practitioner at InstigateHer™. Her weekly podcast, InstigateHer™ features curated content of women thought leaders and self-help experts while delivering a message in just minutes. Danyale leads the Honolulu WomanSpeak circle, which can be best described as Toastmasters for conscious women a guided process that helps a woman discover her unique story and explores ways to be more fully expressed in the world for herself and her community. Through hosting various themed in person woman-centric events and spaces she encourages women to become a more sovereign version of themself.

Suzanne Savet

My background is in marketing, sales, meeting planning and special event management. My partner Holger and I started Topos Productions in 1996. Today, Topos Media creates apps, websites and e-books and we help clients with marketing services.

My interests include writing; travel; art; photography; film; music; food & wine; and sports, especially, golf, tennis and Formula One racing. As a pastime, I admit to spending too much time online watching hilarious animal (dog, cat) and healthy cooking videos.

Kat Uyemura

“I would be flattering myself if I called myself a Renaissance woman. But, I humbly wish to be an eternal student. I’ve always loved the study of the humanities, arts, literature and music. Anatomy and the fascinating human body has always interested me. I’m a yoga momma who loves travel, hiking, running and anything health related. I also have a great respect and curiosity for technological advances. However, though I believe that it’s integral to advance our society and world, I think what each person yearns for is the beauty of art and culture to transcend us to higher connections to each other, love and spirituality.” Kat says she can be found in any book store.

 

Building Community, Making Impact: Volunteering with Ka Po‘e o Kaka‘ako

Alani Apio, a member of the local volunteer group Hui Aloha, and the Impact Hub team, have been actively building relationships with our Kaka’ako neighborhood over the last few months. Every Saturday at 10am, the group of volunteers gathers on the mauka-side (mountain side) of Kaka’ako Gateway Park to clean together and share a meal. The group includes anywhere from 10-30 volunteers each week. The volunteers are a diverse group, comprised of local business-owners, houseless residents, families, and community members.

In November 2018, Ka Po’e o Kaka’ako (The People of Kaka‘ako, KPOK), a group made up of members of the Kaka‘ako houseless community, began hosting regular cleanups of the Kakaako Gateway Park. In December, IHH members and staff were able to raise about $1300 to host a holiday BBQ for the volunteers and the local houseless community. At the event, over 50 guests shared a meal together. Following that event, weekly clean-ups and potlucks were organized to maintain the park, grow relationships, and serve together.

In January 2019, the KPOK group organized a major clean-up around the Children’s Discovery Center. The center was struggling to stay open because of the houseless community that surrounded it. The KPOK group worked with those living near the Center to voluntarily move locations– an unprecedented move that the Center leadership said they had been attempting for over a decade. The clean-up around the center was a tremendous success and truly inspiring.

If you’d like to volunteer for an upcoming clean-up and potluck, email Anne to learn more or come to the mauka-side of Kaka’ako Gateway Park at 10am on Saturdays, rain or shine. We provide gloves, trash bags, water, and aloha. If you can, please bring a dish to share following the clean-up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Announcing our 2019 Impact Partners

Impact Hub HNL is fortunate to partner with select local businesses to help make a bigger impact in our community.

Impact Hubs worldwide are united in the commitment to make social impact in the community, and locally we are grateful for the support of our 2019 Impact Partners.

These companies have demonstrated their support for the growing entrepreneurial and small business community in Honolulu. All Impact Partners are dedicated to bettering Hawaii through their thoughtful business actions.

Our Impact Partner Circle serves as a valuable advisory council that provides sponsorship of events and memberships, strategic insights, and thought leadership for the Impact Hub HNL community. We are proud to announce continued partnership with the following organizations: :

airbnb

Airbnb is a homeshare and experience app that helps create a world of global citizens. With 4,500,000 listings in over 65,000 cities in 191 countries, Airbnb offers the widest variety of unique spaces for rent, whether you want a room, a house, a boat, a tent, or a castle (along with offering other awesome experiences.)

airbnb’s work supports the following SDGs:

American Savings Bank

American Savings Bank is one of the primary financial institutions in the state of Hawaii, and have been serving Hawaii’s businesses and communities since 1925. ASB provides a full range of financial products and services, including business and consumer banking, home loans, insurance and investments.

We’ve partnered with ASB for many events at Impact Hub HNL that help grow financial literacy in the community, including the free public event entitled Building Community with Women Entrepreneurs that aims to build communication and connection between female entrepreneurs and freelancers in our community.

ASB’s work supports the following SDGs:

Elemental Excelerator

One of the leading cleantech incubators in the world, Elemental Excelerator is committed to deploying solutions that make direct impacts on our energy and water usage across the state and throughout the Asia-Pacific region. They work in partnership with the Emerson Collective’s Elemental platform, which is focused on balancing the needs of humanity and nature by supporting scalable, equitable, and innovative solutions.

Elemental Excelerator’s work supports the following SDGs:

Hawaii Investment Ready

Hawaii Investment Ready (HIR) is an accelerator program designed to help Hawaii businesses thrive. Their statewide peer-to-peer learning program has been created to support the sustainability of island social enterprises so that they can scale their businesses in Hawaii and beyond.

HIR’s work supports the following SDGs:

simplicityHR by Altres

ALTRES Staffing is Hawaii’s largest staffing and recruiting company, with seven offices across the state, and simplicityHR by ALTRES serves as the human resources “back office” for more than 2,200 local businesses. For nearly 50 years, they have been Hawaii’s #1 HR outsourcing company and is ranked as one of Hawaii’s Best Places to Work.

Altres’ work supports the following SDGs:

Ulupono

Ulupono Initiative is a local non-profit that invests in a more sustainable Hawaii. Founded by eBay founder Pierre Omidiyar. Ulupono seeks to invest in and help grow local organizations involved in clean/renewable energy, diversified agriculture, and waste-to-energy management – choosing to invest in projects that have high potential for creating large-scale social impact. They invest in companies focused on improving the local energy, food, water, and waste sectors.

Ulupono’s work supports the following SDGs:

Investment Crowdfunding: Democratizing Investment for the 99%

Crowdfunding is a type of financial support that allows curious or excited individuals to pledge money to companies, people, or products that spark interest. And that interest is BROAD: the world of crowdfunding is incredibly diverse and has garnered some very interesting spinoffs, like equity and debt crowdfunding.

Crowdfunding became really popular about a decade ago: Indiegogo launched in 2007 and the other large platform, Kickstarter, launched in 2009. In the decade or so since, there has been a constant flow of campaigns and projects supporting projects both big and small. Some of the most successful campaigns have brought in hundreds millions of dollars, everything from cryptocurrencies, consumer technology, food, smart home items, and games.

Indiegogo and Kickstarter are the two most popular examples of rewards-based crowdfunding. In this type of crowdfunding, consumers will give funds in exchange for a reward, usually the product or service that’s being funding. This allows savvy consumers to give direct support to companies and products that have great promise, and ensures that they are early adopters of cool technology.

In 2017, Impact Hub HNL launched its first crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo to raise scholarship funds for local groups and organizations who needed financial support. In the campaign the community contributed over $10,000, and we able to provide scholarships for 35 memberships, events, and programs, proving that crowdfunding can be a powerful tool for increasing equity.


Another type of fundraising is donation-based crowdfunding, which doesn’t ask for a return product or service. This includes sites like GoFundMe and Crowdrise, which often people use to raise money for themselves and their friends in need.

One of the biggest changes to the crowdfunding world came in 2015 with new rules that updated the Obama-era JOBS Act. This new ruling created exceptions to US securities and investment laws to allow anyone – not just accredited investors (ie: those with $1million net worth) – to become investors: thus, the creation of equity crowdfunding.

Equity crowdfunding allows ‘investors’ to give money to a company in exchange for shares, even if it’s just a small percentage. This created a huge shift in the investment world, and continues to democratize investment for the other 99%. Some examples of equity crowdfunding sites include SeedInvest, WeFunder, CircleUp, and StartEngine.

Another shift was the creation of Debt Crowdfunding (also known as peer-to-peer lending, or P2P lending). This model allows non-accredited investors to support individuals or businesses with direct financing. Examples of these sites include Prosper and LendingClub. These sites offer people a funding route that is not tied to banks, and gives investors an opportunity to support people and projects and earn money in return for their investment.

One of the most exciting things about both equity and debt crowdfunding is that they generate real results for both the investor and company. Debt crowdfunding can bring in returns of about 7%, which is on par with traditional investments. Equity crowdfunding can get startups off the ground with significant capital without the hassle of investors taking over the day-to-day of the company, it can be a great way to build a base of supporters, and offers a range of other benefits.

Of course, with any venture of this sort, it’s good to ensure that the company or product you are investing in (or supporting) has a good track record, is poised for successful delivery of product, or has good projections for return on investment. Any equity crowdfunding platform requires due diligence for the companies to be hosted on site, but it’s always good to do your own research before using your money. WeFunder explains that, “Startups either win big or go bankrupt. You could lose all your money. Consider them more like socially-good lottery tickets.”

Beyond just getting a cool, early-adopter product or receiving a good return on investment, crowdfunding is really a way to vote with your dollars for the world that you wish you see. This democratization of investment is key to building a world beyond traditional investment structures – most of which exclude women, people of color, lower income and otherwise marginal investors.

Voting with your dollars, whether for a product, service, or investment, allows you to expand your social impact and support businesses that align with your core values, which is has the potential for huge social, financial, and economic impact – something we can definitely support!

 

What is Mindfulness & How Can You Begin a Regular Practice?

You might know that meditation can help bring calm and clarity into your mind and body, but have you been able to put these principles into practice?

Mindfulness expert Noah Pomeroy is hosting a 4-part series starting February 5 that allows attendees to experience the expansive benefits of mindfulness for themselves. The series (which can be attended as one class or a series) will help you learn the basics mindfulness training and develop your own practice over the month.

Noah is a certified professional mindfulness teacher by the International Mindfulness Teacher Association and he completed his training in mindfulness facilitation at UCLA. Noah draws on mindfulness teaching experience from a variety of contexts working with individuals and groups, including teaching this practice at the University of Hawaii, UCLA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the Halawa State Prison. The classes will be a combination of lecture, discussion, and guided meditation exercises.

I chatted with Noah about his coming workshop so that we could learn more about this practice, his background, and the upcoming classes.

Andrea B. (AB): What’s the quickest way to describe mindfulness to someone that has never heard of this concept before?

Noah Pomeroy (NP): Mindfulness means directing your attention to the present moment experience with openness and curiosity. It sounds simple enough, but it’s not easy. We all have the capacity to do this to some degree, but we can get much better at it by practicing mindfulness meditation.

AB: What originally (or continues) to keep you excited about mindfulness?

NP: Mindfulness is simply the best tool I have come across to actually engage with each moment of life, rather than being passively carried along on auto-pilot as we are so prone to do. This is why mindfulness is such a game-changer for both our personal and professional lives. As we practice, focus improves and what matters to us and our work becomes clearer. We’ve known for decades that training the body is good for our health – we now know that training our minds is critical as well.

AB: Tell me a bit more about your certification? How long have you been teaching?

NP: After 10 years of a personal practice and 2 years of guiding mindfulness sessions at work, I decided to complete a year long training in mindfulness facilitation at UCLA. As mindfulness has become a wellness buzzword, “2-day teacher certifications” are popping up; the UCLA program grew out of a need to thoroughly train teachers to meet the growing demand for mindfulness training. The program is rooted in the growing body of science that supports the benefits of mindfulness and proven techniques for working with different communities. I’ve worked as a meditation guide at the University of Hawaii for the last 2 years, coaching individuals and groups and delivering lectures for UH’s popular mindfulness classes.

AB: What can people expect in the workshop? What if they are totally new to mindfulness, meditation, and other practices like this?

NP: These classes are designed for people who are new to mindfulness practice, and over the 4-week class series, students will have the opportunity to develop their own daily practice with the support of my guidance and fellow participants. While anyone can take each individual class to learn about a particular aspect of mindfulness practice, participants that choose to do all four will get the most out of the series. Beginning any new daily habit (even for 10 minutes) a day sounds easy, but we all know it is not. In order to experience the benefits of mindfulness, you must practice regularly. I want people to actually start a daily practice that will serve them the rest of their lives. I welcome people who think mindfulness is “woo-woo” or “soft–” through this practice one learns quickly that this practice takes courage, discipline, and the spirit of adventure to meet your experience of life exactly as it is… and those who bring these elements to the practice will be rewarded accordingly.

AB: What is the goal of the workshop – after the workshop, participants should be able do what?

NP: After each class, participants will takeaway their firsthand experience with guided mindfulness practice and an understanding of a particular aspect of practice. Participants that are able to commit to 2-4 weeks of the series will have the best chance to establish a daily mindfulness meditation practice that will allow them to experience the benefits of mindfulness in their lives, work, and relationships. They will have a grasp the fundamentals of practice and how to overcome common obstacles. They will have a taste of the freedom and joy that comes from regular practice that will fuel the momentum of practice they have built through the course.

Thanks Noah for sharing your thoughts! Register for the classes here; members can use discount code MEMBER to get 15% of ticket prices for either the full series or individual classes. 

Join our Membership Discount Program

As a member of Impact Hub HNL you are eligible for discounts from other members and neighborhood businesses. From movies to mortgages, skincare to services, we’ve built a very cool network for our Members. Learn more about currently available member discounts here.

Do you have a discount that you’d like to offer our members? GREAT! We are happy to create partnerships with both member and local businesses. Please see our flyer below, and contact us to learn more or get started.