08/27/2026
With tourism floundering, Hawaii believes a young group of whip-smart engineers and skilled workers can rebrand the state as a high-tech hub.
Glenn Wakai, a state senator, said new industries would help keep more residents on the islands where they grew up.
“The people who are leaving Hawaii are the very people we need to stay to reinvent the economy,” he said. “As those people exit Hawaii, who’s going to be left?”
Hawaii lost a greater share of its population last year than any state except Vermont. Young adults make up roughly a fifth of Hawaii’s population but account for more than 40% of the residents who leave. More than half of Hawaii-born college graduates now live on the mainland.
Ashten Akemoto, 23, studied computer engineering and would have been one of the college students leaving Hawaii but for a meeting with Josh Leong, a 40-year-old former Google employee and an alumnus of the Silicon Valley startup incubator Y Combinator.
They met at a café in Waikiki where Leong, still wet from surfing, persuaded Akemoto to stay in Hawaii. Together, they launched Normal and recruited recent college graduates and experienced engineers to build energy-efficient heating, ventilation and air-conditioning machinery. The business has grown to roughly 20 employees.
Some state leaders believe entrepreneurs like Leong and Akemoto are the missing pieces of the economy’s diversification puzzle: local startup founders who team up with so-called Silicon Valley refugees lured by the weather and glamour of living in Hawaii, and who know how to tap venture capital.
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