HAWAIʻI CC AND UH HILO STUDENTS WIN A YEAR'S TUITION WITH BUSINESS PLANS

Students from the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo and Hawaiʻi Community College won a year’s free tuition for the business plans they submitted to the 2017 HIPlan Competition. Semifinalists in a competition between Hawaiʻi Island entrepreneurs pitched their business plans to judges on October 21. The 15 semifinalists competed for a $25,000 prize to use as seed money toward their vision.

A special category was added to this year’s competition for the best business plan cultivated by students at UH Hilo and Hawaiʻi Community College.

Hawaiʻi CC winner Kainen Kahiwahiwa Bohol submitted a plan to use scrap materials from the campus’ welding shop to make Lava Forge Metalcraft. It would make salable and exportable furniture, tools and decorative items from the scrap materials that are typically discarded by Hawaiʻi CC’s Machine, Welding and Industrial Mechanics Technologies program.

Juvette Kahawaiʻi, a business administration major at UH Hilo, submitted a plan to launch Kupaʻa Tax and Accounting Corporation, a family business that will provide not only tax preparation but bookkeeping and payroll administration for small businesses. Kahawaiʻi plans to be the accountant, her father the head tax preparer, her mother the office manager and brother-in-law the IT specialist.