Recipients of HVCA’s 30th Anniversary Entrepreneur of the Year & Deal of the Year awards were recognized and honored by the Hawaii House of Representatives in a ceremony on Tuesday, March 27th at the Hawaii State Capitol. Each HVCA awardee was introduced and had their diverse achievements recognized by House Representatives. The honorees were presented with certificates to commemorate their visit to the legislature.
Sumil Thapa of Oceanit and Stacy Clayton of Kamehameha Schools were recognized for the Social Impact Entrepreneur of the Year Award for their work to spread computer coding to schools throughout Hawai’i using Altino codable cars. Other awardees included: Brian Goldstein of Noa Botanicals – Deal of the Year; John Komeiji of Hawaiian Telcom – Corporate Intrapreneur of the Year, Jim Reddekopp of Hawaiian Vanilla Company – Consumer Packaged Goods Entrepreneur of the Year; Ian Wetzel of ERS – Investor of the Year; Meli James for Olin Lagon and Forest Frizzel from Shifted Energy – Agriculture / Clean Tech Entrepreneur of the Year.
Oceanit is a major advocate for bringing coding to students & schools around Hawai’i – and is doing so by training local teachers to code with Altino autonomous robotic cars. The hope is to bring computer coding to as many of Hawaii’s teachers and students as possible. Oceanit’s core Altino instructors are Ian Kitajima, Sumil Thapa, Man Chon Kuok who lead many of the Altino trainings and cohorts throughout the year. Oceanit is supported by Lauren Nahme and Stacy Clayton of Kamehameha Schools along with Keith Matsumoto, Robert Lee, Edwin Ju, Aaron Kagawa, Kayla Diniega, and Cara Phillips.
By training teachers from all subject areas, Oceanit exposes participants to computer science & coding languages and also helps to build curriculum around coding. This encourages teachers to merge coding into lesson plans in many, diverse subjects beyond STEM curriculums. The Oceanit & Altino team is honored to be recognized with the Social Impact Entrepreneur of the Year Award and will continue through 2018 with our effort to spread computer coding across the state!
