Thank you for your interest in our Aloha Connects Innovation program.

Thanks to the Cares Act funding, we have completed this program, and the program is now closed.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

Now more than ever, Hawaii needs to address the major economic downturn, massive unemployment, and high rate of business failures resulting from the ongoing suffering created by the COVID-19 pandemic and the collapse of the State’s tourism economy. The Aloha Connects Innovation (ACI) is a new initiative led by the Economic Development Alliance of Hawaii (EDAH) to nurture and grow knowledge-based work opportunities in Hawaii and fuel our emerging industries and innovation sectors. 

Originally architected and envisioned by Omar Sultan of Sultan Ventures, the program is designed to help convert the loss of jobs due to COVID-19 into a potential new career opportunity for our residents.

ACI is designed to assist job seekers who: 

• have been displaced by the economic impacts of COVID-19

The ACI program provides:

• Financial support for individuals and businesses

• Full- and part-time positions including medical coverage 

• Paid training and employment opportunities for individuals

• Compensation for employing companies that create meaningful positions for employees

• Opportunity to up-skill and re-skill for a possible new career trajectory 

• Connect with potential future employers in the emerging and innovation sectors

Catalyzing economic growth of the region is invaluable to the recovery of Hawaii’s economy and a strong knowledge-based workforce with the skills to support emerging growth sectors is a critical part of the solution. Meaningful employment provided by this statewide program will contribute to greater local opportunities for Hawaii’s kamaʻaina economy to ‘build back better’, which is ultimately needed for the short-term survivability and the long-term prosperity of Hawaii. 

WHY ALOHA CONNECTS IS IMPORTANT?

It isn’t usually until crisis or dramatic changes in society that risk and opportunity lock steps.  In the past few decades there have been many attempts to create an innovation economy that would be a new leg in Hawaii's economy.  Like many good initiatives we've designed to correct what's weak or wrong and invited others to teach or fix us when quite possibly we've neglected what's always been our greatest resource.

Is it possible that this part of Hawaii's history inspires a statement that who we need to be is who we have always been?

We believe Aloha Connects Innovation is a nod to what has always been and must always be our greatest resource, other than our island home...you.  

We've come together to share, care, and embrace struggle to discover and recover the gifts that many have neglected and dismissed in ourselves.  We connect to create new opportunities in and for Hawaii from and with you.  We dream of a Hawaii where our economic measurement is not our belongings but how we use and share what we have to inspire belonging and lives lived well.

Subject to change without notice.