Adaptability in the Age of Automation
Hoala Greevy grew up in Liliha, a proud graduate of McKinley High School, and eventually became the founder and CEO of Paubox, a successful software company. But to reach that point, he had to make a difficult decision: leave Hawaiʻi.
When he first launched his company from Honolulu, he quickly realized the limitations of building a tech business in the islands. As he recalled, mainland clients would question his credibility the moment they saw his 808 area code.
“They’d say, How is this product 10 times better than Microsoft or Google, and you’re calling me from Hawaiʻi? I think you’re a gimmick. And then they’d hang up.”
After a few painful rejections, the message became clear: to be taken seriously in tech, he had to move to San Francisco.
But the decision to leave wasn’t just about business. For Hoala, the question of survival had started much earlier, in his own home.
“[My earliest memory of money] was asking for it and then being scolded because not only did we not have it, but I should have known we didn’t have it. And thereby I shouldn’t have asked in the first place.”
Looking back, he realized that money was always the biggest problem: “We had real estate issues when people in our family passed away without wills and trusts, and these properties weren’t even generating income most of the time. But Hawaiian land, I mean, geez. And how can I help solve that? Well, money certainly helps.”
A Migration Crisis in Our Own Backyard
This isn’t just one person’s story. It’s a pattern. According to recent data, more than one in three households (37%) have considered leaving the state in the past year. The outmigration crisis is fueled by the high cost of living and limited access to livable-wage jobs.
The ALICE report (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) found that 45% of Hawaiʻi households struggle to make ends meet, with local families disproportionately represented among those living paycheck to paycheck. That means nearly half of our families are working hard, sometimes two or three jobs, and still can’t cover basic necessities like housing, food, and transportation. Hoala’s reflection on money echoes this reality: Local families have long struggled with economic survival, from broken land titles to working multiple jobs. Hoala’s earliest memory of being scolded for even asking for money captures what so many ALICE families face today: the shame and frustration of scarcity.
From 2024 ALICE Report: Percentage of ALICE Households by County
When home feels unlivable, leaving becomes the only option. But every departure chips away at our communities, our culture, and our future here in Hawaiʻi.
The Age of Automation: Why Adaptability Matters Now
At the same time, the global economy is transforming at lightning speed. Automation and artificial intelligence are reshaping industries, from construction to healthcare to finance. Technical skills, while important, can become outdated within just a few years.
Business leaders emphasize that “in the age of automation, adaptability rules.” LinkedIn’s talent surveys back this up: employers’ top training priority in recent years has not been coding or technical certifications, it has been soft skills like communication, adaptability, and resilience.
From American Enterprise Institute: Non-cognitive Skills Are the Foundation for Technical and Industry-Specific Skills
The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report makes the trend even clearer: by 2025, the most valuable skills will include resilience, flexibility, and agility, ranked right alongside technical expertise. In fact, “resilience, stress tolerance & flexibility” rose to the second most critical skill for the future of work, only behind analytical thinking. Creativity, initiative, leadership, and social influence are also rising sharply.
Hoala calls this ‘pleasant persistence.’ After moving to San Francisco, he pitched investors over 300 times before finding his breakthrough. That grit, the ability to adapt after rejection and keep going, is exactly the kind of foundational skill tomorrow’s workforce will need.
This means that the young people who will succeed in tomorrow’s economy are not necessarily those with the most technical training alone, but those who know how to pivot, problem-solve, and thrive in uncertainty.
Why Foundational Skills are Hawaiʻi’s Competitive Edge
This is exactly why Make IT Happen exists. Our program teaches foundational skills like resilience, curiosity, adaptability, and initiative through culturally grounded kamaʻāina stories that show students real examples of people from their own communities who have faced adversity, adapted, and built meaningful futures here in Hawaiʻi.
Foundational skills are not “extras.” They are the difference between a student giving up when faced with challenges or persisting, learning, and building a path forward. They are the key to unlocking opportunities in fast-changing industries. And they are the skills that will allow our next generation to not only compete globally, but also to stay rooted locally.
For our keiki, this isn’t just about career readiness. It’s about survival on our ancestral lands. If we equip them with adaptability, resilience, and initiative, we give them the tools to create opportunities here rather than being forced to search for them elsewhere.
A Path Forward
Hoala’s story isn’t inevitable. Outmigration does not have to be the defining narrative for Hawaiʻi’s keiki. But if we want to reverse this trend, we must invest in foundational skills now.
Make IT Happen is more than a curriculum, it is a lifeline. By teaching students to adapt, persist, and innovate in a culturally relevant way, we can help them stay and thrive in Hawaiʻi. We can prepare a generation that doesn’t just leave to find opportunity, but instead builds opportunity here, for our lāhui and for our islands.
Hoala came to see that for the state of Hawaiʻi, money itself is a relatively new concept, something introduced less than 200 years ago, but also something now inseparable from survival. “I’d like to show that being Hawaiian and being good at money, or making a lot of money, are not mutually exclusive. It’s okay to do both,” he says. His journey shows the cost and opportunity of adaptability: to grow, he left Hawaiʻi. To succeed, he persisted after more than 300 rejections from investors. And to give back, he now funds the Paubox Kahikina STEM Scholarship, supporting Hawaiians in fields where they remain vastly underrepresented.
In the age of automation, the ones who succeed aren’t those who run the fastest toward new technology, but those who carry the deepest strength to adapt, endure, and grow no matter how the world changes. And if we ground those strengths in our keiki through culturally relevant education today, we can ensure the next generation of Hawaiʻi’s keiki not only survives but thrives right here at home.