Wahine in Tech: Surfing the Future
Join us for an inspiring evening with the wahine shaping the future of Hawai‘i’s tech ecosystem! As part of Honolulu Tech Week, this event brings together founders, executives, creatives, and community members for a night of bold ideas, practical takeaways, and authentic connections.
This isn’t a panel where you just sit back and listen. These are User Generated Conversations (UGCs): interactive discussions led by industry leaders on topics they care deeply about and that matter for Hawai‘i’s future. You’ll choose the sessions most interesting to you, join the conversation, and leave with insights you can act on. Come ready to share your perspective, learn from others, and help shape what’s next for tech in the islands.
🌟 Discussion Leaders
Tianna Johnson – Founder, People Culture Talent
Tianna builds the foundations that turn fast-growing startups into world-class companies. With over 15 years of experience leading people and recruiting functions at Notion, Render, Lyft, and GitHub, she specializes in scaling diverse, inclusive teams through hypergrowth. As the first People hire at Notion, she helped the company grow from 30 to 600+ employees by designing the systems, culture, and hiring practices that made speed and excellence possible. Today, through her consulting firm People Culture Talent, Tianna advises early and mid-stage founders on how to scale sustainably by putting people and culture at the center.
Dr. Loretta Chen – Founder, Smobler
Loretta is a bridge-builder between East and West, leading with purpose, creativity, and trust in the age of AI. As CEO and Founder of Smobler, she’s shaped groundbreaking projects from AI platforms for Hawai‘i food entrepreneurs to blockchain solutions for maritime trade with Mysten Labs, and brought global IPs like the Teletubbies into immersive gaming worlds. Recognized by Forbes, AWS, UBS, INSEAD, and Meta as a Top Female Founder, she’s been celebrated at the New York Stock Exchange for her cross-cultural impact. Drawing on her creative roots in theatre and her entrepreneurial journey across Singapore and Hawai‘i, Loretta will lead a conversation on how storytelling, authenticity, and failure shape resilient leaders—and share hands-on lessons for building purposeful brands and technologies that inspire trust across cultures.
Karin Knox – Founder, Uncharted Marketing AI
Karin helps frontier tech founders get to market faster with sharp positioning and stories that build trust. She led Philanthropy Engineering and Product Marketing at Palantir pre-IPO, scaled an AI startup from Series B to E, and worked with revolutionaries and humanitarians in conflict zones — where she saw how stories move people to act. She’ll lead a discussion on finding your white space and a hands-on workshop to craft mini-stories that make people get it and trust you — with practical tools and a draft you can use right away.
Gigi Dawn – Director, AEP Hawai‘i
Gigi helps Hawai‘i companies build world-class tech teams without leaving the islands. As Director at AEP Hawaii, she partners with banks, startups, and defense contractors to attract and place elite executives, engineers, and operators—while creating pathways for kamaʻāina to return home. She’s led searches across finance and technology that prove Hawai‘i can compete head-on with global hubs, balancing speed with rigor to never lower the bar. Gigi will lead a discussion on how to design hiring practices that attract top talent—from setting pay bands and structuring irresistible offers to building processes that move fast—sharing proven tactics you can use to strengthen your own team right away.
Sponsored by: The Hub Coworking
This event is a part of Honolulu Tech Week - a week of events that unifies Hawaii’s tech ecosystem and those connected to it globally.