Pau Hana with Ryan Ozawa

Rick Kuwahara and I met up with Mr. @Hawaii, Ryan Ozawa yesterday in Chinatown. Ryan is the archetypal early adopter and he's got the brand and voice to prove it.

Ryan Ozawa on Bytemarks Cafe

Ryan and Burt Lum have a weekly broadcast on Hawaii Public Radio called Bytemarks cafe, which they've been doing for nearly nine years now. Getting airtime on Bytemarks is a proven way in Hawaii to announce and publicize things like a product launch, a new business venture, an app release, and so on.

Ryan Ozawa on Geek Beat

Ryan and Burt also have a weekly segment called Geek Beat on Hawaii News Now. We were mentioned on their segment about a year ago (see 1 minute 20 seconds):

Ryan Ozawa going Viral

Ryan recently encountered fame when Trump supporters took to Twitter to bash @hawaii after a federal judge in Hawaii placed a temporary restraining order on the president's proposed travel ban. Thinking ahead, Ryan cornered the @hawaii handle years ago. For better or worse, he went viral for a few days.

SEE ALSO: Quit tweeting your travel ban anger to @hawaii [CNN]

Ryan Ozawa Day Job

Another hat worth mentioning is his day job as Communications Director at Hawaii Information Service, a local real estate tech company. They're national caliber and up to some great stuff this year.

Ryan Ozawa and Smart Yields

Lastly, Ryan is co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer for Smart Yields, an Ag startup in Honolulu.

My Takeaways with Ryan Ozawa

• Bytemarks cafe is now on HPR1 from 6:30pm - 7pm each Wednesday.
• "Inbound Email DLP [Data Loss Prevention] is a thing."
• "We're dorks, we're clearly dorks. But we have no shame." (love it!)
• Facebook video is definitely waging a war on YouTube.
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About Smart Yields

Smart Yields helps small to medium-sized farmers grow more with less by providing access to intelligence through record-keeping and data-monitoring. Founder Vincent Kimura was named “Ag Entrepreneur of the Year” at the 16th annual Hawaii Venture Capital Association (HVCA) awards gala earlier this year.