Creatives and innovators from around the Pacific gathered at the University of Hawai‘i–West O‘ahu in August to examine the role of regional culture in strengthening innovation ecosystems, support continued competitiveness of America’s creative sector and develop new strategies to expand and diversify the country’s STEM workforce.
The aim of the inaugural workshop was to foster collaboration among Pacific Rim Indigenous communities, creative industries and academia to promote Indigenous leadership in pre-commercial technology research. About 50 attendees engaged in various sessions at UH West O‘ahu’s Academy for Creative Media building, including in the Create(x) living laboratory.
“In all my 30-plus years of NSF [National Science Foundation]-funded research, this is the first time I’ve seen them pay attention to culture, and it’s really great to see,” said UH Mānoa Professor Jason Leigh, principal investigator for the workshop. “If you check out streaming media like Netflix, you’d be amazed, like I am, by how many untold stories and how much talent there is in the world. NSF believes that supporting culture as a key part of the science and technology ecosystem will spark new innovative ideas and create new economic opportunities for the future, and I couldn’t agree more.”
Expected outcomes from the workshop include an outline for equitable and inclusive translational computational media research pathways, conceptual models of innovation spaces that integrate Indigenous knowledge and creative computational media, and a report advising the NSF on research and development investments to empower Indigenous communities nationwide.
Co-principal investigators included Kamuela Enos, UH director of Indigenous innovation, Chris Lee, director Academy for Creative Media-UH System, and Nurit Kirshenbaum, assistant professor at UH Information and Computer Sciences. Envisioning innovation hubs centered on Indigenous knowledge and practices, the Hawai‘i workshop also aimed to foster sustainable and inclusive economic growth and cross-Pacific collaboration through Hawai‘i’s strategic position.
“The core premise of the Office of Indigenous Knowledge and Innovation (OIKI) is that the ancestral practices of Hawai‘i are bio-centric sciences and technologies that have been innovated for over millennia, and that our communities that hold these practices constitute an emergent ecosystem of innovation,” Enos said. “Our input in this workshop restates this premise, showcases how it is being captured in the Indigenous Data Hub framework developed by OIKI/LAVA (Laboratory for Advanced Visualization & Applications) staff member and PhD student Kari Noe at the Create(x) lab, and explores with participants how the merging of ancestral sciences and contemporary computational science can be the catalyst for regional economic, cultural and educational opportunities.”
The two-day workshop was the first of six invitation-only events funded by the NSF through the University of California, Los Angeles, focused on innovation, culture and creativity.
Article originally posted to UH News on Aug. 13, 2024.