The Paubox Kahikina Scholarship helps Native Hawaiian students pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and Tech in general. Its purpose is to offer financial support and create a strong network for these students. The scholarship makes education more affordable and connects students with professionals, giving them valuable opportunities to learn and grow in their chosen STEM or Tech fields. This scholarship is about more than just money; it's about building a community and empowering Native Hawaiian students to succeed in STEM or Tech careers.
See also: The big ideas behind the Paubox Kahikina Scholarship
As a recent Kamehameha Schools Kapalama graduate, scholarship recipient Paul Keahi Selhorst, or PK, will move on to attend the University of Oregon to study computer science. Here is a word from PK:
“My name is PK, or Paul Keahi Selhorst, and I’m honored and so very grateful to be part of the 2023 Paubox Kahikina STEM Scholarship Program. This scholarship program will not only help me affirm my education at the University of Oregon but also connect me to a large network of native Hawaiians in the tech field and STEM areas.
At the University of Oregon, I plan on studying computer science and math, which is kind of just thrown into the degree, but mainly just computer science. And my love for computer science started when I was around eight years old, when my parents enrolled me in one of those get your kid out of the house, do what you want spring break programs, where we learn Python and sort of simple functions just to like, and give you a gateway into the tech field as a child and I thought it was cool so I eventually grew to love it. When I was nine through twelve, I was spending my summers at UC Berkeley learning C sharp, C++ Java, a little bit of HTML, CSS, JavaScript just to sort of build apps, games, websites, robotics programs just, sort of get me surrounded with the idea of technology, computer programming, software engineering, and stuff like that.
But around the ages where I was 13 to 16, I slowed down and started focusing on other activities like Jiu Jitsu soccer and skateboarding and just sort of being a kid in Hawaii growing up, hanging out with my friends, doing all that little beach stuff and stuff like that. So I grew very distant to my love of computer science and computer programming. It wasn't until my junior year where I came to the realization that I have no idea what I'm doing after high school. I was like ‘oh I have two years left.’ That went by way too fast. ‘What am I doing with my life?’
Throughout Covid, my whole plan was corporate law because while in quarantine I surrounded myself with a lot of friends that had family in the legal industry.
So, being in that sort of group kind of just guided me to law because they're like, ‘Oh yeah, you should do this! I love my job,’ but I never really saw myself being in corporate law because I don't have a connection to that field. But I still wanted to be in law because they were really good at persuading me. And so junior summer, a really good family friend from California came down and he's the head of marketplace at Facebook, or he was the head of marketplace at Facebook. But he sort of guided me into what I do want to do now. At first, it was space law, but I was like again I don't know if you see myself in that industry because I don’t have a connection to it. Then it was tech lawn which I was like, ‘oh yeah, I love technology. I used to love technology, I still love it. Why not sort of transit myself more into that field instead of focusing on the topic that I don't really see myself enjoying in the next however many years I'm in that.’
That comes down to my senior year where my entire junior year I was just “Tech Law! Tech Law! Tech Law!” I was pretty set on that, but I didn't really have a specific aspect of tech law that I wanted to go in until the idea of AI and machine learning in the classroom came up with Chai GPT and those programs where I was kind of like, ‘Huh! AI is going to, or it's already the future. It's going to keep growing. The programs are going to keep getting stronger and it's gonna eventually have to steal someone's personal property and information.’ You see that with the lawsuit going on with Chat GPT right now but I was like, ‘hmm, we already see people stealing native Hawaiian culture with our language, our practices stuff like that. Why like, what's stopping AI from doing the same thing and stealing it on a level where we don't know how to control it and so that's kind of where I find myself right now; that's where my journey led me to and that's where I want to go with my life: being an AI lawyer. Hopefully focusing on Hawaiian affairs and really in the next four years of college I'll sort of just see what happens but that's where I'm set on right now.”
Watch: Paubox Kahikna Scholarship Recipient Reflection | Paul Keahi Selhorst
Tshedimoso Makhene
