Tech View: Grassroots tech efforts support Maui recovery

The deadly wildfires on Maui have left the people of Hawaii stunned, devastated, mourning and searching for answers. There’s also anger, hunger for blame and demands for accountability. All of this is reasonable, although answers and action plans will take months and years to emerge — long after the piercing glare of the global media machine has run off after the next big story.

But the unthinkable tragedy in Lahaina has also, once again, brought out the best in us: a massive mobilization of everyday citizens to help, with an innate instinct to come together as a community to aid and comfort those who have lost everything. The people of Hawaii stood up on Day One to start the recovery process, even as fires still burned.

The late Fred Rogers said his mother would always tell him, in times of tumult, to “look for the helpers.” And I choose to do so, and in particular, the helping hands extended from Hawaii’s tech community.

Among the immediate needs of the recovery effort were communications and connectivity. Local ham radio users quickly set up relays to exchange information across the island, but the lack of power and internet connectivity was a major problem.

Less than 48 hours after fire ripped through Lahaina, a sprawling network of people and organizations mobilized to bring in generator-powered satellite Starlink internet terminals.

Bernice Kissinger, a friend and longtime tech and defense industry catalyst, linked up with colleague Kevin Miyashiro at Pacific Impact Zone. They then worked with contacts at national IT firm SMX, which works with Starlink maker SpaceX and has a strong presence in Hawaii. From there, calls went out far and wide, to FEMA, the state, the military (the Army Corps of Engineers, INDOPACOM and Space Command) and the community — including the Chamber of Commerce Hawaii and Maui Economic Development Board.

Ultimately, the coalition secured 16 Starlink terminals that landed on Maui before the end of the weekend. They were set up with generators and training at key locations scouted by George Purdy and Ka‘ala Buenconsejo.

In fact, those units were among dozens more that SpaceX aggregated across multiple orders from local companies and people into a single, fast-tracked shipment to Maui. And today, connectivity on the island is bolstered by Hawaiian Telcom, Spectrum, Verizon, T-Mobile and other carriers that set up hundreds of free Wi-Fi hot spots.

It was only as Maui residents could get online again last week that many of them could let family and friends know they were OK — ending days of unknowing agony.

“It took a tremendous amount of coordination across all of these different sectors of our community — no one sector could do it alone,” Kissinger said.

One of the most visible community efforts was the Maui Fires People Finder, an online spreadsheet of people reported missing and whether they had been found.

Maui resident Ellie Erickson rallied a team to maintain the list, verifying information and posting updates several times a day. The group even reviewed paper logs at various shelters and cross-referenced names to let loved ones know they’d checked in.

Although an official list is in the works at the state level, the crowdsourced list saved hundreds of people from scouring random social media posts and photos for information. Today, most of the 6,115 names on the list are marked “found.”

“Our team of more than 50 volunteers comes from a vast and diverse background,” Erickson said. “The common theme is immense empathy and love for those impacted by the fires.”

Members of the tech community on Maui also rallied neighbors and colleagues from across the state and around the world for help with things on the ground as well as online.

The Maui Techies meetup group, and its Facebook community, was one active hub of solution building.

“While the government and nongovernmental organizations are doing their bits, the local groups are in my humble opinion doing many things better, local to local,” observed organizer Jerry Isdale. He’s already looking ahead to build open-source tools to prevent and manage the next disaster.

Dozens of groups formed organically on platforms ranging from Telegram to Discord to Slack. Aram Armstrong, a resident of Upcountry Maui and onetime County Council candidate, assembled the Aloha Response Team on Slack, bringing together over 100 people from a variety of tech backgrounds, from mapping to software development.

And citizen-based Maui Rapid Response quickly launched a website at MauiRapidResponse.org to aggregate the most credible and helpful information, recruit volunteers and raise funds. “People are going through a lot,” said coordinator Kainoa Horcajo. “We’re just trying to fill in the gaps. Aloha is driving this.”

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Ryan Kawailani Ozawa hosts Hawaii Slack, an online community for the Hawaii tech and startup community. Learn more and apply to join at HawaiiSlack.com.