Recipients of the the Governor's Innovation Awards for September include a private company that provides people around the world with quality water, a school student coordinator who came up with a creative business teaching tool for his students, and a university leadership team that is accommodating growing student enrollment on a limited budget.

Deep Ocean Hawaii was recognized in the category of Innovation by an Organization for creating a solution to provide clean drinking water to population centers worldwide.

The company specializes in open-ocean harvesting, processing, containerization and bulk shipment of deep ocean water. It uses a reverse osmosis process to separate deep ocean water into potable and brine products.

In the event of a disaster or water shortage anywhere in the world, desalinated drinkable water can be produced on demand and shipped immediately to where it is needed.

The Innovation by an Individual award went to Tom Yamamoto, an 'Iliahi Elementary School student coordinator, who developed a teaching tool to provide elementary and high school students with a real world opportunity to learn how to manage and operate a business.

He developed the 'Iliahi Dragon Café Program, a high school credited course, which teaches Leilehua High School seniors about business and marketing, while earning scholarships for college tuition. The program also allows elementary school students to enhance their math, technology, communications, teamwork and money management skills, while getting an introduction to what it takes to run a small business.

The University of Hawaii-Hilo was recognized in the Innovation in Government category for maintaining its educational services for students and the community with less funding and resources.

Randy Hirokawa, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, was faced with the challenge of increased student enrollment in his Communications 270 class, "Introduction to Theories of Human Communication," a required course for communications majors.

With enrollment peaking at 70 students this fall and limited classroom space to accommodate them, Hirokawa faced the possibility of having to close enrollment to students who might need the class to graduate.

University technicians repaired older audiovisual equipment slated to be discarded and installed it in the dining room at virtually no cost to the university.

"Through innovation, collaboration, and resourcefulness — under challenging circumstances — Dr. Hirokawa's class is being held in the Hale Kehau dining room, and no student had to be turned away," according to a news release from the governor's office.