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Nalukai Academy’s fall program brought 20 East Hawaii high school students together in Hilo to develop and test ideas addressing local challenges. The nonprofit says its entrepreneurship training is intended to help young people see ways to build meaningful work in Hawaii, as the state faces concern about young residents leaving.
Nalukai Academy, a Hawaii nonprofit that teaches high school students entrepreneurship and problem-solving, enrolled 20 teens from across East Hawaii in a fall program at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, where they built prototypes for projects addressing local challenges. The program is designed to help students see opportunities to pursue meaningful work in the state, amid concern that young professionals leaving Hawaii could weaken its skilled workforce and communities.
During the program, students worked in teams on ideas ranging from housing and financial literacy to safer driving and uses for invasive seaweed. One group proposed an online platform for local residents to sell property to other Hawaii residents, with the stated aim of keeping homes affordable and out of the hands of mainland investors. Another developed a website concept to help students open savings accounts at local banks.
In one project session, students showed a website for a proposed business that would turn invasive limu into fertilizer for native plants to Justin Clayton of The Food Basket, the Big Island’s food bank. Clayton said the site was easy to navigate and visually appealing, but asked the team to consider practical questions, including the supply of limu and how much farmers would need to treat an acre. Students recorded the feedback as they refined their plans.
More than half of the students in the fall cohort were Native Hawaiian, and 70% attended low-income schools, according to the report. Students used artificial-intelligence tools to create website or app mock-ups. Each student who completes a Nalukai spring, summer or fall program receives a laptop, and the nonprofit relies mainly on grants and donations, board member and former participant Nick Wong said.
Building Career Ideas at Home
Nalukai’s work addresses a concern often called Hawaii’s brain drain: young people moving away for education or career options and not returning. The report describes the potential consequences as fewer skilled workers, a smaller tax base and an older, shrinking population. Communities may also lose young adults with strong ties to local values and culture.
The program’s approach is to give students practical experience developing ideas around problems they recognize in their own communities. That does not establish that participants will stay in Hawaii or that the projects will become viable businesses. It does provide an opportunity to explore entrepreneurship, receive feedback from local adults and consider how work can be connected to community needs.
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How Nalukai Uses Local Problems
Nalukai is in its 10th year and runs programs mainly during school breaks. Its stated mission is to empower Hawaii youth to solve local challenges by introducing career paths and developing problem-solving skills. The fall program lasted six days and included research, brainstorming, prototyping and presentations to community members.
The curriculum is not framed around maximizing profits or attracting the largest investors. Students and organizers described an emphasis on building services that benefit communities, alongside Native Hawaiian values and personal responsibility. Program facilitator Auston Stewart said young people need to learn how to create and operate businesses and social ventures so they can generate opportunities for themselves and others in their communities.
“There are plentiful opportunities here. As a person who lives in Hawaii, I can also do something to get change here.”
— Kayley Shimazu, Waiakea High School student and program participant
Whether Students Stay in Hawaii
The report does not provide data on how many Nalukai alumni remain in Hawaii, return after leaving, or launch businesses based on program projects. It also does not quantify the scale of youth outmigration or measure whether participation affects students’ education and career choices. The prototypes and proposals described are early-stage ideas; their costs, feasibility and eventual adoption are not established.
It is also unclear how many students Nalukai can serve in future cohorts. The nonprofit depends primarily on grants and donations, but the report does not give its budget, funding outlook or enrollment targets.
From Prototypes to Community Pitches
After testing their prototypes with community members, students were scheduled to spend the following day preparing pitches to present at the end of the program week. Feedback from those presentations could help teams refine their ideas, though the report does not say whether any project will advance to implementation or receive further support.
Nalukai’s next step is to continue its school-break programs, subject to its funding and capacity. Whether that work can translate into longer-term career opportunities in Hawaii remains an open question beyond the experiences of the students featured in the report.
Key Questions
What is Nalukai Academy?
Nalukai Academy is a Hawaii nonprofit that runs programs for high school students, teaching problem-solving and entrepreneurship through projects focused on local challenges.
How many students took part in the fall program?
The fall cohort included 20 students from public and private schools across East Hawaii. More than half were Native Hawaiian, and 70% attended low-income schools, according to the report.
What projects did students develop?
Ideas included a local property-sale platform, a website to help students open savings accounts, a safer-driving app concept and a proposal to turn invasive limu into fertilizer for native plants. The projects were prototypes, not confirmed operating businesses.
Does Nalukai’s program stop young people from leaving Hawaii?
The report does not establish that. Nalukai aims to help students recognize local career and business opportunities, but it provides no data showing how participation affects whether students later stay in or return to Hawaii.
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