HIplan was formed in 2016 with a mission of building the Hawaii Island entrepreneur ecosystem. We have conducted five annual business plan competitions where we engaged with over 200 Hawaii Island companies and awarded over $200,000 in prizes. More than 50% of the businesses entering the competition were Ag-businesses and four of the five $25,000 grand prize winners were Ag-businesses. It’s worth noting that all five grand prize winners were woman-led businesses and all three prize winners at our virtual 2020 Demo Day were woman-led. Congratulations Ladies!
New Beginnings: Tropical AgTech Conference
HIplan is pivoting towards building and supporting the Hawaii Ag Ecosystem. We will convene an international conference called the Tropical AgTech Conference. It will convene on June 22-23 2022 at UH Hilo. We will discontinue our annual Business Plan Competition and Demo Day.
Hawaii has a long history of innovation in sustainable agriculture, horticulture, and aquaculture. But today’s high production costs make Hawaii’s agriculture uncompetitive in global markets and result in Hawaii importing 85% of our food. Governor Ige declared a goal to double Hawaii food production in 5 years. To meet this goal, innovative solutions are needed. The future of Hawaii agriculture will require innovation and adoption of AgTech.
We’re inviting thought leaders in various Ag technologies to present at the conference. We will introduce the global AgTech state of the art to Hawaii as well as introduce Hawaii’s many Ag resources to the global AgTech sector. The Tropical AgTech Conference will be a big first step towards stimulating development of AgTech in Hawaii that can transform Hawaii agriculture to a technology-enabled sustainable industry. Building the Tropical AgTech industry in Hawaii will improve agriculture productivity with higher profits (higher yields & margins), higher paying jobs, a younger workforce, new higher value crops, and grow our economy.
Hawaii Ag desperately needs better economics and AgTech innovation is the way to get there. We will soon launch a new conference website (TropAgTech.com) and will be sharing more news about the conference as we develop.