Purple Manifesto

Innovation is our inheritance. We can express our ancestry through modern applications; we can honor our kūpuna with our actions and creations in today’s technological context. We’ve observed that our ʻōpio—when resourced and supported through culture-based computer science and STEAM education—do this naturally.  Adults can do it too, navigating the currents of contemporary capitalism, politics, and dominant culture to achieve maoli ends. 19th century kūpuna did it; Hawaiians have a demonstrated history of adopting and excelling at modern innovations.

We are redefining wealth. Markets and prices are often used to allocate resources and signal where attention should go, and surplus can provide stability and resilience when stewarded wisely. Yet, the reality of today’s market economy is clear: power and wealth concentrate, profit is pursued at any cost, and the burden falls on ʻāina and people. The hua ʻōlelo waiwai points us in another direction—toward abundance as that which has been deposited or laid up (from waihona): resources, relationships, and knowledge held in common. These are not static stores, but living assets we can draw upon and put to work when we haku waiwai—the active weaving, creating, and building to generate abundance and harvest surplus that sustains and regenerates our communities, our ʻāina, and our people. Waiwai is not extraction or hoarding; it is abundance in motion, circulated and expanded through community.

A history of sharing and adaptation to build on. Should the goal be to return to a non-monetary, sharing economy of lawaiʻa and mahi ʻai? This economy never disappeared; it is alive, unquantified, and growing; surplus isn’t hoarded—it circulates to sustain and strengthen relationships. Alongside it we find a rich history and contemporary practice of Kanaka Maoli selective appropriation of ownership models, financial tools, and organizational forms--from Aliʻi trusts to today’s nonprofits and startups--to serve collective goals. These mixed legacies and living alternative economies form the foundation for operating in today’s mixed economy. We move within the market economy with fluency and intention, bringing our values into its systems while expanding the space for reciprocal and regenerative exchange. In doing so, we build waiwai consistent with ea—wealth rooted in community well-being and self-determination.

Building in Context. “Entrepreneur” is a popular label, often tied to the myth of the self-made individual. But true entrepreneurial agency exists in a circular feedback loop with place. An entrepreneur is someone who recognizes (kilo) opportunities (value) in a context (place) and connects resources (relationships) in order to create waiwai (see above) and benefit a whole region. Entrepreneurs don’t just build businesses. They leverage social capital and spark cultural change. They build institutions that become the keystone species of sustainable ecosystems. Importantly, we mean ecosystem here literally–not as a metaphor for industrial organization, but as a reality better called a biocultural system.

Hawaiʻi innovations with global impact. Our history of innovation is not just local—it has shaped the world. In 1889, Joseph Kekuku of Lāʻie invented the steel guitar, sparking an evolution in sound that inspired amplifiers and laid the foundation for blues, rock and roll, and country music. In the 20th century, the modern catamaran industry—today a multi-billion-dollar sector—traces its roots to Hawaiians’ double-hulled voyaging canoes, adapted by entrepreneurs like Woody Brown, Alfred Kumalae, and Rudy Choy into a global industry. And in 1971, engineers at the University of Hawaiʻi created ALOHAnet, the first wireless packet-switching system, which became the backbone for Ethernet and Wi-Fi. Long before these, our kūpuna engineered loko iʻa and loʻi kalo, sophisticated agricultural systems that produced abundance while regenerating ecosystems. These stories remind us that Hawaiian and Hawaiʻi ingenuity, rooted in place, has seeded industries and sustained communities. Haku waiwai continues this tradition—actively weaving, creating, and building abundance.

Pā mai ka ea. “Diversifying the economy” can be the justification for any and all economic activity. “What Hawaiʻi has to give to the world” is not a spiritual insight adoptable by anyone, anywhere without reciprocity or advice and consent. Hawaiʻi as a “living laboratory” is presumptuous. The motto we choose is Eahou. 

Ea - sovereignty, rule, independence; life, air, breath
Hou - new, fresh, expand, rise

New life, a new form of independence achieved through the adoption, exercise, application and scaling of practices both (k)new and modern. For a collective this starts with practicing self-reliance and life-affirming actions when we haku waiwai to create kīpuka that attracts other life. Eventually this can create a vibrant, bioculturally balanced ecosystem.

Breathing new life. Eahou means taking in a breath of fresh air to breathe new life into our context. And since we are dreamers—and more importantly, doers—we accomplish this through learning and doing (k)new stuff: ʻike kupuna, aloha ʻāina, and a worldview that cared for place (as if it were kin, because it is) and people (because we all related), made real in the ways we leverage modern tools to create and build together for the flourishing of ʻāina and lāhui. 

Navigating the emerging. Eahou calls us to be both grounded and adaptive. Around us, emerging technologies—Generative AI, Machine Learning, IoT and Edge Computing, Quantum Computing, Blockchain, Biotechnology, Advanced Manufacturing and beyond—are reshaping the global economy. At the same time, competing economic frameworks such as distributism, circular economies, and solidarity economies are challenging the assumptions of extractive capitalism. We do not adopt these trends uncritically. Instead, we approach them thoughtfully with community, grounded in a Hawaiian worldview with an inclination to haku waiwai and build abundance. By doing so, we ensure that emerging technologies and economic models serve our people and ʻāina, rather than the other way around.

An institution of Eahou. Purple Maiʻa is an entrepreneurial institution that seeks to embody eahou. We are what Maryann Feldman would call an organization with, “norms of openness, tolerance for risk, appreciation for diversity, and confidence in the realization of mutual gain for the public and the private sector.” We articulate this through our values:

• Value Hawaiʻi

• Brave not Perfect

• Empower Excellence

• Seek the Purpleness

• Take Action

Hana the hana. Show up. Do the work. Steady and true. Keep at it. Work is service—an act of care, of devotion. For many of us, this was the work philosophy of our grandparents and parents, and it is still the ethic of many mākua today, working so that their families can survive here, whether in wage labor or in unpaid or underpaid work that makes life possible—care work, food production, land management, education and cultural practice. We need workforce development to move alongside entrepreneurship, building industries with jobs that are regenerative because they are asset-building, each effort a deposit into the waihona of waiwai. And we need jobs that give kuleana in order to awaken mana for our youth, passing on to them this ethic of work that is humble, consistent, compounding, never fame-seeking, but grounded in results and relationships. This is especially needed in a time of hulihia.

Leadership in uncertain times. We live in an era of overlapping crises—political turmoil, climate disruption, and economic precarity—that can overwhelm and divide. We see and feel this in our communities and across social media. Our kūpuna also faced a rapidly changing world, leaving us models for navigating turbulence with resilience and dignity. ʻŌpū aliʻi reminds us that true leadership is the ability to absorb hardship and criticism without lashing out, to listen deeply, and to act with humility. Called to haku waiwai, we build and create—leveraging modern tools and technologies to solve pressing problems. Sometimes this means taking the first step with courage, even when the way is not clear, while staying grounded in our communities and ʻāina so we do not lose our way. Leadership is practiced through transparency, trust in relationships, and closeness to those we serve.

We are of the nature to get old and die. Remembering that, we realize now is the time to eahou.