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Robbie Melton is the new chief executive officer of the Hawaii Tech Development Corp., the state agency charged with the development of our tech industry. She has her work cut out for her.
HTDC is a separate state corporation with its own board. It was attached to the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism for administrative purposes, but over the years has become more a part of DBEDT, with less autonomy than before.
As CEO, she is or should be empowered to operate HTDC as a separate corporation pursuant to its origins. With latitude and adequate funding, she can take HTDC and our tech industry to new levels.
Building a tech industry isn’t easy. Former Gov. George Ariyoshi wanted to diversify into tech with the creation of HTDC, but it hasn’t gone exactly as he had hoped. After an encouraging start, it struggled through the years under former Gov. Linda Lingle, and by 2010 tech growth had gone soft. Although the Cancer Center was finally built, the Regional Bio-Safety Lab failed; geothermal is still limited; a number of clean energy sources haven’t been developed; and the Thirty Meter Telescope, open-ocean aquaculture and GMOs are all under siege.
The Legislature doesn’t see high tech as high priority. It turned its back on Act 221 and has been unwilling to provide serious funding for local tech or HTDC. The capital sources available to the industry remain insufficient, and it is seriously handicapped.
Nor did the Legislature want to extend the lease for HTDC’s Manoa Innovation Center, and MIC will revert to the University of Hawaii next year. The Hawaii Community Development Authority is trying to build a $22 million facility for HTDC in Kakaako. If that plan fails, HTDC will be without a home. What then?
We like consumer tech, but we aren’t investing nearly enough to grow tech as an industry. As an isolated, fragile mono-economy trying to hold onto our kids when the mainland calls, we are really asking for it.
But there are stirrings in Kakaako. A new wind is blowing, and a fresh generation of entrepreneurs and "makers" is sprouting faster than the high-rises. Can they afford to stay after the high-rises are done?
On March 5, DBEDT’s Entrepreneurs’ Day at the Capitol was a bellwether. There were 130 organizations that took to the rails on three Capitol floors to excite legislators and visitors — a perfect gathering for an election year.
Then again on Saturday, 28 makers exhibited at the "Mini Makers Faire" at ‘Iolani School. It was packed and the energy was amazing. The Maker Movement is not tech per se, but tech is central.
The sea change is that tech has been subsumed into these more generalized entrepreneurship and maker movements by an enthusiastic generation that uses tech creatively but doesn’t necessarily develop it.
Were our earlier high-tech efforts premature? Maybe we needed to build generations of entrepreneurs and makers first. To create a tech industry, community support must be universal.
Transforming these new movements into the high-tech, high-leverage industry we are seeking will require greater support from the public and the Legislature. This challenge will fall on HTDC.
It is in this confluence that Robbie Melton arrives. She holds a master’s degree in science, technology and public policy from George Washington University and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Drake University.
She comes with decades of experience in tech and tech transfer and commercialization. She was most recently director of entrepreneurial innovation of the Maryland Technology Development Corp., Maryland’s HTDC.
Melton was a technology project management specialist at UH-Manoa in the 1980s. She knows Hawaii. Take a look at her ThinkTech interview at tinyurl.com/robbiemelton and you’ll see her talk about her background, qualifications and ideas.
For one thing, Melton wants to increase the ceiling on Small Business Innovation Research grants and is actively supporting a bill this year to that effect.
She also knows the value of networking and is advancing HTDC’s role as a hub. On March 26 you can meet her at HTDC’s Wetware Event at the Microsoft Store.
We’re hoping that she can show our legislators, entrepreneurs and makers the way to a high-tech industry that can find a productive place in today’s global markets and finally diversify our state.
The bottom line is that we need her, and she needs us, to put tech on the right track. Go and wish her well March 26. Let’s make a real showing and try hard to give her our universal support.
——— Jay Fidell, a longtime business lawyer, founded ThinkTech Hawaii, a digital media company that reports on the tech and energy sectors of Hawaii’s economy. Reach him at fidell@lava.net.
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