Editorial
Best high-tech investment is education

Hawai'i-born high-tech evangelist Guy Kawasaki had sobering advice for local technology dreamers during a brief visit here this past week.

Kawasaki, who spent years promoting Apple Computer, now has his own high-tech venture capital business. He remains optimistic about the future of technology, but he warns that Hawai'i should not put its short-term economic dreams on the industry.

Venture capital is in short supply today, Kawasaki said, and it will be tough for far-off Hawai'i to shoulder its way into a business that is — at least temporarily — shrinking. But Kawasaki did have advice that rings true for Hawai'i; advice that should not be ignored.

At some point, Hawai'i's turn will come. The question is whether we will be ready to seize the opportunity when it happens.

The best way to ensure that we will is to step our investment today in education, from the first years of public school through specialized programs at the University.

Quality schools, Kawasaki said, produce the brain power that both launch successful companies and staff those that decide to establish themselves here.

It is a matter of investing in our future. There is little sense in wishing and hoping that high tech will be an economic savior for Hawai'i. What we must do is prepare now, in our schools, to take control of our economic future no matter which way it turns.

Is anybody listening?