Oceanit founder and CEO, Dr. Patrick Sullivan, joined host Unyong Nakata to talk innovation in Hawai’i on the latest episode of The Hawaii Business Podcast.
In this episode, available now wherever you get your podcasts, Dr. Sullivan spoke on his views of Hawaii’s uniqueness, why he settled in the islands, and the influences that Hawaii’s culture had on Oceanit as a tech startup. Dr. Sullivan founded Oceanit in 1985 and it has been headquartered in Honolulu ever since. Starting early on as an ocean and coastal engineering firm, Oceanit grew to encompass Sullivan’s broader ethos of ‘Mind to Market’, driving technologies rooted in deep science from the lab to use in the wider world.
Nakata started off by declaring both her and Sullivan to be nerds – a word embraced at Oceanit to mean ‘endless curiosity’. Dr. Sullivan explained how math and science are the fundamental tools in the nerd’s kit that helps one to be constantly curious and explore the broader world and universe. This Mind to Market ethos has driven Oceanit over the past decades as the company evolved to adopt principles of Design Thinking, human-centered wicked problem solving, and Intellectual Anarchy.
“No matter how brilliant the technology is… if we can’t work with people the technology won’t be successful,” says Dr. Sullivan.
Intellectual Anarchy is Dr. Sullivan’s book about the process and methodologies applied at Oceanit. The accelerating challenges facing our planet—such as climate change, food scarcity, sustainable energy, overpopulation, nuclear proliferation, income inequality, and rising healthcare costs—are solvable. The question is not if, but when. All these challenges directly impact our lives and our unwritten future – and that is what Oceanit seeks to address each day.
You can find this latest episode of The Hawaii Business Podcast on the HBM website, or listen to it in full by clicking here.
Season 1, Episode 9 is presented by Subaru Hawai’i – dedicated to making the world a better place, their goal is to be more than a car company through its Love Promises. The Hawaii Business Podcast is also presented by Hawaii Business Magazine and Servco Pacific, The Hawaii Business Podcast takes listeners behind the scenes with some of Hawaiʻi’s most influential business and community leaders, focusing on big issues impacting Hawaiʻi, its organizations, and of course its people – all with a unique perspective from each distinguished guest.
