INhonolulu Magazine Issue #15 - March 2014 | Page 38

Inspired to invest
Feature / Community voices
Editor’s note: Mondenna Jamshidi is the first
Executive Director of Envision Hawai‘i.

Envisioning a prosperous
Hawai‘i through community
investment.
Mondenna Jamshidi
Photo by Will Caron

S

ocial entrepreneurship and “doing
business with aloha” are skills that
come naturally to Chad Kahunahana. Kahunahana is the owner and
operator of Experience Hawaii; Vice
Chairman of Envision Hawai‘i (a social entrepreneurship resource); and,
now, co-founder of “Green Apple”—an
innovative smart phone mobile app
designed to help Hawai‘i public school
teachers efficiently purchase school
supplies through community investing.
Rooted in Hawaiian culture and
local community values, Kahunahana
did what good social entrepreneurs
do best—he created a simple business
opportunity by utilizing modern communication tools to solve a social issue
affecting local Hawai‘i residents. Kahunahana realized that Hawai‘i public
school teachers are paid some of the
lowest salaries nationwide, when compared to most other industries and
sectors. They also often have to pay for
classroom supplies out of pocket.
Kahunahana identified that public
school teachers and parents, together,
spend on average $26.7 billion annually on school supplies nationwide.
Teachers alone spend on average $485
per person per year out of their already low salaries. And parents spend
approximately $700 per year. In a
still-limping local economy in a state
that is ranked among the top three
most expensive to live in, the cost for
school supplies averages out to around
30 percent more due to shippi