Rallying to Raise Young Entrepreneurs

The Hawaii Venture Capital Association sees a lot of young people who want to change the world. But its luncheon on Thursday will focus on an even younger cross section of the next generation.

After taking last month off for the Hawaii Innovation Initiative forum, the HVCA will host a panel discussion and audience Q&A focused on "paying it forward to provide a stable future for Hawaii's youth."

"How are we investing in our youth?" organizers ask. "What’s going on at the junior school and high school levels in Hawaii to help grow and train the next generation of entrepreneurs? How are we planting that seed and showing our youth Hawaii is a place that can support these endeavors as they continue to grow?"

The panel includes:

• Kimberly Canepa, President of Junior Achievement of Hawaii. She previously served as program manager before ascending to current her post in 2013. The Hawaii chapter of Junior Achievement was founded in 1957 to educate and inspire young people to value free enterprise, business, and economics.

• Steve Sue, Chairman of the BizGym Foundation. Sue, who created Lemonade Alley five years ago, created the foundation to run educational business, entrepreneurial, financial and charitable giving events and programs.

• Casey Agena, Director of Summer School at Punahou School. I previously wrote about Punahou's geeky summer offerings, but the program includes a wide array of academic classes as well as music, dance, and sports.

• Michelle Bartell, Vice President of Corporate Communications and Manager of Community Advancement at American Savings Bank.

• Donavan Kealoha, Co-Founder of the Purple Mai'a Foundation. The foundation is a "startup technology education nonprofit" focused on broadening the horizons of middle school students, this school year offering after-school "tech maker" classes.

• Jason Sewell, Co-Founder and Curriculum Developer at DevLeague. DevLeague, which is currently planning a statewide hackathon with Uber, is a programming bootcamp that promises to turn beginning coders into employable full-stack web developers in a matter of weeks.

The conversation will be moderated by HVCA President Meli James, who also leads new ventures for Sultan Ventures and program director at XLR8UH.

If the "Investing in Hawaii's Kid-Preneurs" panel wasn't already jam packed with local educational leaders, the only person missing would be a kid.

The luncheon will be held at 11:30 a.m. on Thursday, Oct. 22 at The Plaza Club on the 20th floor of Pioneer Plaza (900 Fort Street Mall). Early bird registration is $40 ($30 for HVCA members, $20 for students), or $50 at the door. Parking is available at Harbor Court.

For more information, visit HVCA.org, follow @HVCA808 on Twitter, or connect with the association on Facebook.