Hawaii has started down the path of creating "Startup Hawaii," following the framework of the national Startup America Partnership! Join us for our very first networking meetup where you can learn more about Startup Hawaii and, hopefully, become part of our movement!

In short, we're bringing together a group of entrepreneurs who have firsthand knowledge of the gaps in our local startup ecosystem. Then, we'll bring attention to those challenges and work to persuade local government, businesses, and support organizations to help fill those gaps. We've gotten great feedback from other entrepreneurs telling us that they would be interested in helping, so now we're taking the next step and trying to get everyone involved.

And, if that's not enough incentive, we'll have some giveaways, too! ;-)

Whether or not you can attend, or if you're on a neighbor island, register anyway and we'll keep you in the loop on everything related to Startup Hawaii.

For background, Startup America is a Steve Case-funded initiative to spur entrepreneurial job development, and is helping to foster vibrant startup communities all over the country through the creation of Startup America Regions. These regional groups are driven from within the community and made up of the entrepreneurs who have firsthand knowledge of the region's advantages and challenges. The goal of this movement is to identify the gaps in Hawaii's startup ecosystem, bring attention to those gaps, then work with local government, businesses, and support organizations to fill those gaps.