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Member News

Technology Update from our Co-Founder & Chief Geeky Officer

Nam VuAloha Everyone! Chúc mừng năm mới! (Happy New Year!)

It’s been a while since I have sent a message out and a lot has happened… Wait, that’s what I said last time! We have some great news about our technology and our facilities and we wanted to be sure to share some details with you.

New Copiers are Coming

We’ve ordered three new copiers that will be delivered by the end of February. The current printers have (mostly) served us well, but as anyone with a Chromebook knows, it’s not perfect. The new printers will support printing from all current platforms and provide more reliable performance for all of us. These new printers will also add security and privacy of documents – you will need to enter a personal code to release the documents in the print queue. Additionally, the printers will be on a service contract which will ensure uptime in case our resident copier repair tech (ahem, that’s me) is out. And YES, these new printers will have scanning capabilities. Copies, printing, and scanning will remain free for members.

New Door Locks

We will be installing a new door lock system. August (the current app-based lock system) has been really good to us and was a great starting option. However, the time has come for a more robust system. The new system will feature an access pad – to gain entry, you just need to hold your smartphone up to the access pad and do a little twist of your wrist. The new locks will not have a delay, so when the door closes after hours, it will immediately be locked. This will increase the security of our members and our shared space. As usual, this is only applicable to Unlimited Members who have access 24/7.

New Member Dashboard

In the coming months, we will be rolling out a new member management system to replace our current system. The new system will have a web-based and mobile platform so you can choose whichever option is more convenient. Like any new program, there will be an adjustment period to learn the new system, but we are optimistic that it will be significantly better overall. The primary driver of this change was for improved backend management: as we have grown, the current system became increasingly difficult to manage. Finally, apologies in advance – everyone will need to re-enter your credit card information when the new system goes live due to credit card privacy rules.

New Thermostats

You may have noticed that we’ve been changing out all of the thermostats for improved energy savings and comfort. The old thermostats could not be programmed efficiently or easily, which meant that the inside blower units were running every Sunday even though the building chiller was not providing us with cold air. The new thermostats give us complete flexibility in scheduling and gives us control of all of the thermostats from afar – all 14 of them. We will be changing the thermostats in Suite 200 very soon. Thank you for your patience – we know, it is COLD!

VoIP Phones

You may have noticed the addition of phones in the Small Meeting Room and the Boardroom. These are voice-over-IP (VoIP) phones and are for you to use like a regular phone – there is no need to dial any codes to get an outside line. Do you want us to install phones in the red London phone booths? Let us know.

Internet Connection and Wi-Fi

We’ve upgraded our connection to a full 1Gbps/1Gbps (that’s gigabytes per second, and yes, that’s REALLY fast)! Previously we had a 100Mbps burstable to 1Gbps – this means that it normally operated at 100Mbps, but if there is a need to go higher because of usage or demand, then it would burst up higher. This was super confusing because when you ran a speedtest, it would not show 1Gbps causing some of you to ask me, “What’s Uuuuppp?” I’ve recently transitioned to cloud storage for my personal files and photos and have been uploading 3TB of data to the cloud, which would have taken me 733 hours to do at home, which is about one month! Instead, it took me a total of about 24 hours to upload everything at Impact Hub HNL! For the fastest speeds, you can use the wired connection downstairs and in offices.

We also have a 300Mbps backup connection that automatically kicks in if our main connection goes down for any reason. We were careful to make sure that the two connections do not share facilities upstream to provide redundancy. Which means if there is a power outage at one of the facilities it should not affect both connections. Super geeky, I know.

We recently needed to move the main connection to a new server rack which required us to take the main connection offline. The backup kicked in as designed and no one even knew anything was being done.

The Wi-Fi access points we use are stadium grade/carrier grade. Translation: it’s the same equipment many stadiums use for Wi-Fi to provide service to a lot of devices in a confined area. It will easily provide access to 500 devices concurrently in our space.

All of this for you, our valued members! As always, if you have any questions, or comments, please do not hesitate to reach out to me directly.

Nam, Co-Founder and Chief Geeky Officer

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.

Member Spotlight: Curt Wilken and Karl Smith of CityWide Home Loans

This month’s Member Spotlight is the two owners of CityWide Homeloans, Karl Smith and Curtis Wilken. CityWide is a residential mortgage bank.  In their Hawaii office Karl and Curt focus heavily on construction loans and VA (veteran’s loans) – both of which there is a large need for here in the islands.

Their successful business relationship was actually forged many years ago – the two met with they were kids growing up in Ogden, Utah. They have been friends since 7th grade and remained friends through their college years at Weber State, also in Utah.  It wasn’t until Curt retired from the AirForce, last year, that he was finally able to convince his friend Karl to come visit, and their company grew from there.

CityWide is already one of the largest lenders in the Western states. Regarding their loan services in Hawaii, Karl notes that Hawaii banks tend to be a little more conservative with their lending criteria, and CityWide was able to step in and offer loans for a wide range of projects.  They offer homeowners the opportunity to rebuild old homes, expand their home’s footprint, or do refurbishments and improvements.

The CityWide team was one of our very first members here at Impact Hub, and their time here has proven successful  – they’ve expanded their business and added three new members to their team. When Impact Hub HNL was featured on Hawaii Public Radio recently, Karl was quoted as saying, “We can grow within the space and it’s just a really neat atmosphere.”

If you want to learn more about lending and construction loans, you can listen to Karl and Curt on the Fix it Friday show from 8am-9am weekly with Mike Buck on AM 690. They are also hosting an upcoming Lunch & Learn at Impact Hub HNL, 7 Nov at noon, with Amber Lethem about improving your sales growth. You can register for this FREE event by emailing Curt directly.

Sort it Out! Impact Hub HNL Waste Audit Project

This week Impact Hub HNL will be conducting a waste audit to get better insight into what type and how much rubbish we throw away during our daily operations and events. And we would love your help!

Today we relocated waste bins to the kitchen area with new signage to direct you where to drop off your waste. The primary waste categories you’ll see include:

  • Food waste: all food, which includes leftovers, teabags, and coffee grinds
  • HI-5 items: all soda, beer, and water cans and bottles with the Hawaii 5-cent refund
  • Plastics: Any plastic container that is not HI-5 (cleaning bottles, condiments, etc)
  • All glass and metal: Any glass or metal container that is not HI-5 (wine bottles, soup cans, mason jars, etc)
  • All Paper: We’ll be sorting paper from waste bins near the printers, and collecting all paper including newspapers, magazines, paperboard, receipts and more.

All bins will be labeled clearly with the type of waste and a list of examples of each so that you can determine what goes where. And we will keep our large HI-5 recycle bin for all the returnables, and keep the large rubbish bin for anything miscellaneous that doesn’t fit into the bins.

This waste audit will help Impact Hub HNL in our commitment to sustainability and our goal of creating less waste, both to be better stewards of our island ecosystem, and also to align ourselves more closely with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Evaluating our waste over the course of this week will give us insight into the small changes we can make to lessen our footprint. Thanks in advance for your help sorting this week!

Photo by Lacey Williams on Unsplash

Humans of Impact Hub HNL: Hawaiʻi Women in Filmmaking

hawaii women in filmmaking

You can support creative endeavors for young women and girls by supporting Hawaiʻi Women in Filmmaking’s Summer Programs crowdfunding campaign!

Hawaiʻi Women in Filmmaking (HWF) is a dynamic team of women that creates opportunities for creative expression and skill-building in film for young women and girls. Their work is focused on amplifying the voices of women, sharing their stories, and providing an opportunity to express their own unique identities through the powerful medium of film. We are so happy to have this passionate team based at Impact Hub HNL!

HWF is made up of Executive Director Vera Zambonelli, Daní Ortiz Padilla as Development & Community Relations, and Valerie Narte, their Filmmaker in Residence.

As a non-profit, ensuring funding for their projects is one of Vera’s primary – and most challenging – tasks. Their current crowdfunding campaign is called Amplify Their Voices.

This crowdfunding campaign is a way to raise funds to support HWF 2018 Summer Programs for Young Women – Making Media that Matters and Reel Camps for Girls. About 90% of the campaign funds will go to scholarships for deserving young women; “Registration fees should never be a barrier for entry for any girls for either of our summer programs,” Vera says.

Making Media that Matters is a filmmaking program where young women develop the technical and critical-thinking skills needed to create both narrative and documentary films. Each session explores and examines social justice issues that impact the lives and communities of these young women.

Reel Camps for Girls is an intensive basic filmmaking and animation programming intended to introduce technical filmmaking skills to produce a short film. The participants are organized in production crews and work together to create films that interrupt gender stereotypes and change the way women view themselves, each other and our future.

HWF is also really clear about their goal: they want to create a safe and creative space for girls and young women to learn valuable technical skills and the tools needed to tell their stories. Film industry statistics regarding women’s involvement in the filmmaking and creative process are pretty dire, and HWF works to redress that inequity. HWF believes that more female involvement in the creative process behind-the-scene affects what we see in front of the screen. Moreover, HWF offers production services for other nonprofits and local businesses and hires HWF graduates. The young women are always paid for their work, and HWF has a policy of never asking the girls to volunteer their time – this allows them to gain marketable skills and earn income, ensuring that even at a young age, they understand the value of their work, time, and brilliance!

These filmmaking programs for young women have been underway for seven years and many former attendees have gone on to become mentors, and mentors to become teachers leading to a virtuous cycle of creative peer-to-peer mentoring.

The crowdfunding campaign culminates on Saturday, May 26 with a Movie Trivia Benefit Night. Register for the event here, learn more about Hawaiʻi Women in Filmmaking here, and if you feel inspired, you can donate to their campaign here.