“My observation is that in successful places, there are individuals that assume the role of regional champions—individuals who live and work in a region and take responsibility for stewardship of the place.”

– Maryann P. Feldman
The character of innovative places: entrepreneurial strategy, economic development, and prosperity

“How much we can eat from one banana tree? If you only counting bananas, none.”

– Simon Tajiri
“Kumpang Economy”

Purple Manifesto

  1. We can express our ancestry through modern applications; we can honor our kūpuna with our actions and creations in today’s technological context. We’ve observed that our ʻōpio–when given the opportunity through culture-based computer science and STEAM educational experiences–do this naturally. Adults can do it too, navigating the currents of contemporary capitalism, politics, and dominant culture to achieve maoli ends. 19th century kūpuna did it; Hawaiians have a demonstrated history of adopting and excelling at modern innovations.
  1. Many of us have now been influenced by an ongoing conversation that seeks to redefine wealth. Western wealth means surplus value extracted from ʻāina and people, and it’s only possible through the externalization of costs onto ʻāina and people. The hua ʻōlelo, “waiwai” points to a different conception of what is valuable to retain or let flow. Wealth is water is life. 
  1. Should the goal be to return to a non-monetary, sharing economy of lawaiʻa1 and mahi ʻai? This economy never disappeared and is alive today, unquantified and growing. Alongside and intertwining with it we find a rich history and contemporary practice of Kanaka Maoli selective appropriation of private ownership, financial tools, and organizational forms for business and governance. From the 19th century formation of Aliʻi trusts to today’s proliferation of nonprofits, this mixed legacy of economic practice is what we have to build on.
  1. It’s become popular to claim the title “entrepreneur.” The idea of the self-made man (and now, girl boss) looms over this word. But entrepreneurial agency exists in a circular feedback loop with place. An entrepreneur is someone who recognizes (kilo) opportunities (value) in a context (place) and connects resources (relationships) in order to create employment and benefit a whole region. Entrepreneurs don’t just build businesses, they leverage social capital and spark culture change. They build institutions that become the keystone species of sustainable ecosystems2. Importantly, we mean ecosystem here literally–not as a metaphor for industrial organization, but as a concept better called a biocultural3 system.
  1. “Diversifying the economy” can be the justification for any and all economic activity. “What Hawaiʻi has to give to the world” is not a spiritual insight adoptable by anyone, anywhere, for nothing in return. Hawaiʻi as a “living laboratory” is presumptuous and ethically suspect. The motto we choose is Eahou. 

    Ea – Sovereignty, rule, independence; Life, air, breath

    Hou – New, fresh, recent

    New independence, new rule, and new life through self-determination. For a collective this starts with practicing self-reliance and life-affirming actions to create a kīpuka that attracts other life. Eventually this will create a vibrant, bioculturally balanced ecosystem where we practice circular economics.

  1. Eahou means taking in a breath of fresh air to breathe new life into our context. And since we are dreamers–and more importantly–doers, we accomplish this through learning and doing (k)new stuff: ʻike kupuna, aloha ʻāina, a worldview that sought to care for place (as if it were kin) and people (because we all kinda related).  
  1. Purple Maiʻa is an entrepreneurial institution that seeks to embody eahou. We are what Maryann Feldman would call an organization with, “norms of openness, tolerance for risk, appreciation for diversity, and confidence in the realization of mutual gain for the public and the private sector.” We articulate this through our values:
  • We are grounded in the values of Hawaiʻi and move through our work guided by a Hawaiian worldview.
  • We look to the past for inspiration while forging ahead in the confidence of our abilities to shape our future.
  • We work hard and have a bias towards action.
  • We demand excellence of ourselves and each other.
  • We believe that greatness is achieved in the agency of others.
  • We are accountable to ourselves, to each other, and the organization.
  • We seek the purple-ness in those we serve, in those that we hana with, the programs we design, the classes we host, in everything we do.

What we have so far:

  • Kaikaina programs reaching ʻōpio with culture-based CS and STEAM education through out-of-school time classes and school partnerships with charter and immersion schools
  • The HIKI certificate at Windward Community College and the start of a middle college that can help students achieve early college credit in network of charter schools
  • Hiapo workforce development programs certifying Hawaiian and local people and breaking them into careers in the tech industry that can support a family to stay in Hawaiʻi
  • 20-24 companies creating jobs that have come through Mālama programs in entrepreneurship and design
  • 1-2 companies starting to break out with potential to generate multiple impacts (economic, educational and social)
  • Developing protocols and relational practices for working with Native Hawaiian communities with equity, reciprocity, and transparency4

What we are going to do:

  • Generate high alpha economic returns through selective appropriation of business models and solving for the problems the US has created for itself
  • Co-creation/launch, incubation and acceleration of culturally-grounded, ʻōiwi-founded, Tech-enabled companies
  • Create an educational system in partnership with aligned institutions that identifies and nurtures outliers
  • Establish Hawaiʻi as the leader in solving sustainability and climate challenges
  1. We call what’s coming The Mālaplex, a space organized to solve challenges like climate change, soil depletion, and ecosystem collapse through ʻāina-centered innovation. The Mālaplex takes the tech campus and makes it a diversified mala. It’s a space for mālama-ing the soil, literally and figuratively. The pillars of the Mālaplex are: KIA (Knowledges, Innovation and Application). 
  1. The MālaPlex is a place where people live and work together in physical space, babies to kūpuna. It’s a place where people can access ʻai pono, education, healthcare, affordable housing, and spiritual growth. The MālaPlex keeps the close-knit community of the plantation era and rejects racial hierarchy, indenture and extractivism. It keeps todayʻs belief in the value of each individual’s journey while rejecting isolation, consumerism and inequality. 
  1. Work can be medicine. Put another way, kuleana awakens mana.5 The pandemic showed us that the way we work isn’t working. Essential workers earn less-than-living wages; feminized reproductive work is assumed to be free. The MālaPlex is a place where we iterate solutions to these problems with innovations in the structure of the workday, the valuation of labor, social norms, and the distribution of resources.
  1. Underpinning the MālaPlex there will be (k)new systems of governance and accountability that are consensual, wise, inclusive, adaptable, and that promote peace.
  1. The MālaPlex will force us to invent financial and organizational structures to denuclearize wealth. This means that instead of income being channeled into assets held by individuals and shared only within nuclear families, those among us with accumulated financial wealth invest and pass on our legacies to a larger lāhui. Proposals like housing and food trusts have already been made.6
  1. We are of the nature to get old and die. Remembering that, we realize now is the time to eahou.

1Vaughan, Mehana Blaich. Kaiāulu: Gathering Tides. 2018 – Return ↑
2 Feldman, Maryann P. The character of innovative places: entrepreneurial strategy, economic development, and prosperity.” Small Business Economics. (2014) 43:9–20. – Return ↑
3Chang, Winter, and Lincoln. Hawai‘i in Focus: Navigating Pathways in Global Biocultural Leadership.” Sustainability, 2019. – Return ↑
4Enos, Kamuela. “Innovation as Restoration.” Presentation to Purple Maiʻa. – Return ↑
5Twinkle Borge was a speaker at 2022 Native Hawaiian Convention. – Return ↑
6See the work of Christina Kaleiwahea – Return ↑