Josten Forsythe (left) visits the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, also known as the Hawaii State Museum of Natural and Cultural History with his Movers and Shakas cohort. Forsythe grew up in central Oahu.
Bryson Hoe/Courtesy of Movers and ShakasWhen Nicole Lim, who was born and raised on Honolulu, heard last December about Movers and Shakas, a public-private initiative to bring remote workers to Hawaii temporarily, “I was viscerally upset about it,” she recalls. “I envisioned tech bros coming over and harassing dolphins and driving rents up.”
But reflecting on her own experiences as a “digital and analog nomad” after leaving her job in 2015 as a senior manager at eBay in San Jose, “I felt it was very hypocritical for me to be so protective when I had been doing the same thing,” says Lim. In 2020 alone, Lim worked in Chile, Bali and Patagonia before the pandemic — and her mother — convinced her to return home.
Lim ended up writing about her “cognitive dissonance” in a Dec. 21 editorial for the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, questioning the “‘us vs. them’ tribal mentality” the program had provoked in her and vowing, among other things, to “adopt a mindset of abundance that Hawaii can provide for all if we collectively participate in its stewardship.”
A month later, Lim put more of her fears to rest by becoming director of Movers and Shakas, which drew nearly 90,000 applicants for just 50 slots. “A few of the founding members reached out to encourage me to apply for the program,” Lim explains. “I was skeptical, but in my first conversation, I learned this was a local group of volunteer CEOs who had a lot of heart in it and had come together to help Hawaii.”
The first cohort, who range in age from 24 to 60-plus and come from a variety of industries and U.S. regions, began arriving in February for at least one month of remote work and 15 hours volunteering with a local nonprofit. Many could understand Lim’s initial concerns, since 65 percent are also returning Hawaii residents, like Josten Forsythe, a senior consultant with Booz Allen Hamilton in San Francisco who grew up in Mililani, a suburban community in central Oahu.
Forsythe still has family on the island, although he said he’s staying in a Honolulu hotel since his East Coast office hours on Zoom “would be brutal on them.” He had his nephews and niece in mind when deciding to participate in the program, since working remotely “may be a harder experience to find in Hawaii than it is on the mainland,” Forsythe notes. “I wanted to spread awareness that you can make a life for yourself through different opportunities, some of which may be remote in nature.”
For his volunteer commitment, Forsythe says, he is working with the local Chamber of Commerce and the state Department of Education to put together a mini-curriculum “to show industry problems in the classroom — like under-representation in STEM, or the need for critical thinking skills — and get kids thinking about what awaits them after school ends … I want to provide another perspective for these kids to view the world.”
When asked if he planned to return to his home in San Mateo, Forsythe said he was “not sure of what the next step is yet, but I’ll be here through April.”
As a member of the first Movers and Shakas cohort, Google employee Nicole Chiu-Wang relocated from San Francisco to Hawaii for at least two months, bringing her family with her.
Bryson Hoe/Courtesy of Movers and ShakasOne of 30 women in the first Movers and Shakas group, Nicole Chiu-Wang is a product and business strategy lead for Google who relocated from San Francisco to a rental house for two months — and potentially longer — with her husband and two young sons.
She’s volunteering with a local company called Hanalei Beauty Co. via House of Mana Up, a statewide initiative to support Hawaii entrepreneurs. “I feel very passionately about working with others, mentoring and sharing my experiences with other founders of startups,” says Chiu-Wang, who was an intellectual property attorney when she moved to San Francisco from her hometown of Los Angeles more than a decade ago.
Already impressed with the “robust” startup world and the number of co-working spaces, Chiu-Wang says she also plans to support local entrepreneurs in other ways. “As someone who tries to shop small and shop local, minority- and female-owned (stores), there’s a lot of those here,” she notes. “I hope to spend the majority of my Silicon Valley paycheck over here in those kinds of businesses.”
Chiu-Wang says she also particularly appreciates the island lifestyle, including taking care of the environment and early morning hours at her son’s preschool that are conducive to Silicon Valley work — some of the reasons she would “potentially extend” her family’s two-month stay.
“The values and the culture are really important to us — the way we want to raise our children, the emphasis we want to have on family — and this seemed like the opportunity to do a trial run and see what it’s like,” she says. “We could have come on our own, but this is the push that we needed to do it.”
Nicole Lim was born and raised in Honolulu, and at first she was skeptical of the Movers and Shakas program to bring remote workers to Hawaii. Then she became its director.
Bryson Hoe/Courtesy of Movers and ShakasAs director, Lim has organized cultural training sessions for Movers and Shakas participants, including returning residents, that cover Hawaiian concepts such as aloha and kuleana (responsibility), the historic causes of inequality in the islands, and “the unique influences of Asian, Polynesian and Western cultures and how there are different business and leadership styles because of that,” she notes. “The goal is to create strong relationships and to understand local context, so they can do that better.”
A longer-term goal is “about promoting brain gain — reversing brain drain and ideally preventing the brain drain we’ve talked a lot about in Hawaii since I grew up — in the tech and innovation sectors,” Lim says. “Companies have started here and often when they’re successful, they move to the mainland. So it’s really about how do we build that up ecosystem, that community, and hit that critical mass. It’s about creating that nucleus.”
There will be another Movers and Shakas cohort, Lim says, most likely this summer, although plans are still in the works. “In the future, it might look more like an online program, a lower-touch program, so we can scale,” Lim says.
Going forward, the program will likely continue to choose both kama‘aina (“children of the land,” or locals) and people who did not grow up in the islands, according to Lim.
“It’s great to have a mix,” she says. “People ask, ‘Why not make it all returning kama‘aina or all non-kama‘aina? The diversity leads to better solutions and cross-pollination and everyone has something to contribute. We want that diversity — it’s intentional.”
She adds, “To me this is really about exploring ways to attract a different type of visitor, a longer-term one that is more socially responsible, that ideally shares and respects Hawaii’s values. We’re using the pilot program to test and learn how to support a positive experience and impact for the participants and local community.”
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