Beyond the Classroom: Exploring Tech in the Real World – Season 2

Gregory Hester
Chief Executive Officer at Ulu HI-Tech

Greg Hester is the CEO of Ulu HI-Tech, Inc., a Native Hawaiian Organization owned DevSecOps company. Greg is a Cybersecurity Maturity Model (CMMC) Cyber AB Registered Practitioner (RP) who has over 28 years of IT consulting, cybersecurity, and leadership experience. His knowledge of security frameworks, agile software development methodologies, enterprise and software architecture, and program and change management has allowed Greg to become a technology and cybersecurity leader in diverse industries, including captive insurance, banking, finance, healthcare, manufacturing, publishing, and more.
Greg was previously a Senior Vice President and the IT Division Manager of First Hawaiian Bank and prior to that was a Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Hawaii Medical Services Association (HMSA), the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Hawaii. Greg is also involved on several volunteer boards, including the Hawaii Health Information Exchange, The YMCA of Honolulu, and the CIO Council of Hawaii, where he is the current President.

Leo Hourvitz
Software Engineer at Google

Leo Hourvitz joined Google in 2012 in the Tokyo office, where he worked on transit and directions in Google Maps for iOS for many years. In 2021 he and his family moved to Hawai’i, and he now works on Google’s SDKs that allow third-party developers to create great mobile apps that use geographic data. Prior to Google, Leo was in the animation and games industry for many years and also worked at Apple and NeXT in the early days of personal computers.

Shawn Simon
Full-stack Software Engineer at Google

Shawn Simon is a full-stack software engineer who joined Google LA in 2016 to work in Google Ads. He has also worked for Gradient Ventures (Google’s in-house VC for AI startups) and at numerous startups before joining Google. He is passionate about UX, software architecture, gaming, and surfing.

Pratik Prasad
Software Engineer, Engineering Manager at ClassDojo

Pratik Prasad is a software engineer and engineering manager living in Honolulu. He spent twelve years working in technology, at 10-person startups as well as established companies like Twitter, and Ellevest. He currently works at ClassDojo.
He has been programming for 18 years and holds a BS in Computer Science from the University of Washington. Originally, he saw the power of technology to make work easier for others. Luckily, that led to a career spanning San Francisco, New York, and now Honolulu, growing both as an engineer and leader. He hopes to share his experiences so that you may be able to progress further and faster.

Christine Lanning
President at Integrated Security Technologies

Christine Lanning leads an elite team of security system integrators as President of Integrated Security Technologies, Inc. (IST). IST was awarded 2024 Hawaii Business Magazine Top 250 Business, 2020 Pacific Business News Fastest Growing Companies, and has been Hawaii Business Magazine’s Best Places to Work since 2013. IST’s mission “Leading Hawaii to a Safer Place” reflects Christine’s history of commitment to the local community and the security industry. In 2020, Christine became the SBA Leader of the Year for Hawaii, and in 2014 she was awarded the ASIS Woman of the Year Award. Christine holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Hawaii – West Oahu and a Master’s Degree in Information Systems from Hawaii Pacific University.

Benjamin Schuster
Senior Vice President of Engineering Technologies at First Hawaiian Bank

Technology leader with over 15 years of software engineering experience within banking and financial services. Currently responsible for the overall technology transformation of First Hawaiian Bank, including software engineering, digital, customer relationship management, and API platforms. Moved to Hawaii from Los Angeles in 2018 after working in the software space at American Express and a few LA-based tech startups.

Jason Axelson
Senior Software Engineer at Felt

Jason is a senior software engineer at Oakland-based Felt, developing the backend for a modern online mapping and visualization tool. His career includes a brief management role at Felt and work with Hawaii startups like Hobnob, MeetingSift, and Contix. Jason’s programming passion currently centers on Elixir, a functional language with Lisp-like macros built on the Erlang virtual machine.
Born in Massachusetts but raised in Maui, Jason graduated from Maui High School, where he played saxophone and tuba in the marching band. He earned a BS in Electrical Engineering with a minor in Information and Computer Science from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, blending an interest in hardware with a passion for software.

Shanon Skillman
UI/UX Designer at eWorld Enterprise Solutions

Shanon Skillman is a versatile UX/UI Designer with a unique journey from fashion design to technology. After earning a BS in Fashion Design & Merchandising from UH Manoa, she enhanced her technical skills through a Fullstack JavaScript Web Development Bootcamp. Shanon transitioned from Sales Management to User Training to a Business Analyst role, ultimately finding her passion in UX/UI design. Over the past five years, she has excelled in creating seamless user experiences, leveraging her diverse background in design, technology, user training, management, operations, and agile methodologies. Shanon’s expertise champions empathetic design, creative problem-solving, and bridging the gap between people and technology. She is currently designing for three state-wide applications and driving the growth & development of the UX/UI team at eWorld Enterprise Solutions.

Kaitlin Watasaki
UI/UX Designer at eWorld Enterprise Solutions

Kaitlin Watasaki is a UX Designer with a rich background in graphic design. Starting her career crafting visually appealing graphics at a local marketing company, she transitioned to web design, where she honed her skills in creating user-friendly websites. To enhance her expertise, Kaitlin learned front-end coding, giving her a solid technical foundation. She furthered her knowledge by completing a master’s course in UX design, which equipped her with advanced techniques and strategies for user-centered design. Kaitlin is currently advocating for UX design at eWorld Enterprise Solutions and mentoring a handful of other UX designers at the company.

Cinthia Miller
Chief System Architect and Principal Consultant at Techmana

With over 25 years of software development and solution architecture experience, Cinthia is the Chief System Architect at Techmana, providing principal consulting services to clients in Hawaii. Her current consulting work with Hawaiian Airlines includes solution architecture and leadership for their Digital Experience and IT Revenue teams. Prior to Techmana, Cinthia worked at Microsoft as a consultant for Hawaiian Airlines, HMSA, Hawaii Gas, Hawaiian Electric, Toyota, and Chevron.

Adam Palmer
Chief Information Security Officer at First Hawaiian Bank

Adam Palmer is a 2003 UH EMBA graduate and is currently the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for First Hawaiian Bank, the largest bank in Hawaii. Adam has 20+ years of cybersecurity experience. He began his career as a Navy JAG officer. Adam later moved to Washington DC where he created the cybersecurity program for the ORG top-level domain and then later lived for 10 years in Europe, where he led the UN Global Program Against Cybercrime, co-led cyber risk for the largest bank in mainland Europe, and worked as a senior cybersecurity field engineer for two major vendors (Tenable & FireEye). In his role at both Tenable and FireEye, he also covered EMEA and APAC with significant work across both regions. Adam has published numerous articles on cybersecurity and spoken at global cybersecurity conferences, most recently, in 2024, at events in both Berlin and Singapore. At First Hawaiian Bank, Adam leads the cybersecurity division team that includes all operational cybersecurity risk-related activities.

Steven Sakata
Vice President at eWorld Enterprise Solutions

Steven Sakata, is Vice President, at eWorld Enterprise Solutions, a Hawaii-based IT company. Steve’s background in IT includes working at IBM with supercomputing, parallel processing, and business systems, and at eWorldES, software development. eWorldES provides full-stack development, low-no-code, cloud computing, AI, and systems integration.

Brandon Luu
Business Analyst at eWorld Enterprise Solutions

Brandon graduated from UH Manoa with a degree in Management Information Systems from Shidler. He was formerly a Computer Science major as well but switched after his sophomore year to be more involved in the process of how a system should work to meet the needs of the business/user. He has worked at eWorld as a Business Analyst since graduating in 2016 and is growing alongside his Computer Science cohorts as leads/seniors for various projects at eWorld while mentoring interns and new hires.

Edward White
Staff Software Engineer in AI/ML

Ed White is a software engineer based in Honolulu, focused on data science in the defense industry. He arrived in Oahu with the Army in 2008 and received a dual degree in Computer Science and Entrepreneurship from UH Manoa in 2018. Ed has worked for both consulting firms and product-driven startups and has extensive experience navigating the Hawaii and remote technology scene, attempting to connect the local community to global opportunities. Ed’s latest role was as a staff software engineer at an MLOps startup, working to improve the product with customers in Honolulu.

Jason Leong
Systems Development Manager at Hawaii Dental Service

Jason Leong is the Systems Development Manager at Hawaii Dental Service (HDS). Jason and his team primarily focus on developing the software used for day to day operations at HDS as well as all external websites which are used by their members and dentists. Jason has been at HDS for 6 years, and his prior roles included Programmer Analyst and Database Administrator. Prior to joining HDS, Jason was a student at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science.

Rayfe Gaspar-Asaoka
Partner at Canaan

Rayfe is currently a partner at Canaan, a $7B early-stage venture capital firm based in the Bay Area. He leads frontier tech investments in Artificial Intelligence, Edge Computing, Space and Robotics, and vertical AI software. Rayfe has prior work experience in strategy consulting, data science, and hardware engineering. He earned an M.S. in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California. He was born and raised in Oahu and currently lives in Los Angeles.