WAIWAI CON 2025
WAIWAI Con 2025
“Envisioning an ʻĀina Aloha Economy”
(November 2025) – In early October, HIR hosted the inaugural WAIWAI Con. This wasn’t just a conference. It was an ʻaha — a gathering place for entrepreneurs, funders, and community partners to share ideas, inspiration, laughter, tears, and most importantly, gratitude to each other. For us, and others there, it was medicine.
Depending on where you look, the world feels heavy right now—climate crises, conflict, and collapse are overwhelming and seemingly intractable.
These types of ʻaha or gatherings are a kind of ceremony. They show us that healing is strategy, that coherence — when people, land, and purpose move together — is what transformation actually feels like. If the work doesn’t feel like healing, we’re just rebuilding the same systems we’re trying to leave behind.
What we experienced at WAIWAI Con wasn’t just inspiration; it was proof. Proof that when we build relationships grounded in trust, reciprocity, and aloha, the system itself begins to heal and shift. Proof that leadership and values rooted in Native Hawaiian and Indigenous ways of being and moving in interconnectedness creates the conditions for transformative change.
Gathering Purpose
Across Hawaiʻi, folks are doing important, inspiring work. In our work at HIR, we’ve heard again and again that what matters most is staying connected and building momentum toward an economic future of true abundance.
We envision WAIWAI CON as a space to:
Deepen Pilina with social entrepreneurs, funders, and partners across the islands
Learn & Share about impactful projects and initiatives in motion
Collaborate & Cross-Pollinate ideas, strategies, and inspiration–all to get things done
Our Collective Vision
This year’s inaugural theme, “Envisioning an ʻĀina Aloha Economy,” invited us to dream boldly and work collectively toward an economy rooted in our values, our relationships, and our shared responsibility to care for ʻāina and community.
Together, we gathered, connected, learned, and explored ways to strengthen our collective vision of an ʻĀina Aloha Economy—one that uplifts our community, protects our resources, and invests in our shared future
ʻAʻohe hana nui ke alu ʻia
No task is too big when done together
– Ōlelo Noʻeau, 14
