Opening Plenary and Ceremonies:
Monday April 7th, 2025
10:30AM - 12:30PM HST
Opening Protocol by Dolly Tatofi, MSW, LCSW
Opening Comments by Sandi Capuano Morrison, MA, CEO, IVAT
Plenary Speaker: Miki Tomita, PhD - Founder & CEO of Education Incubator
Dr. Miki Tomita Okamoto is the Founder and CEO of Education Incubator, a Hawaiʻi-based nonprofit dedicated to empowering young people, adults and communities to live with passion and purpose in service of a better world. Born and raised on Maui, Miki graduated from H.P. Baldwin High School, earned a B.S.E. in Biosystems Engineering from the University of Hawaiʻi-Mānoa, and a Ph.D. in education from Stanford University. She has worked in education for 25 years as a teacher, administrator, curriculum developer, and researcher, in formal and informal education for all ages. Miki believes that traditional, cultural and place-based wisdom can transform society’s greatest challenges into opportunities to regenerate a compassionate, thriving planet. She is the named successor in ALOHA practice of renowned Hawaiian storyteller and cultural practitioner, Pono Shim. She will be sharing about "Unlocking the Power of our Collective Medicine: ALOHA is the Key". She will share the ALOHA practices of her teacher Pono Shim and his Aunty Pilahi Paki, on how ALOHA is the key to unlocking the healing potential in us all. Our life journey is shaped by many hands, seen and unseen; how might we discern the challenges and opportunities faced by others when we are experiencing our own simultaneously? It is true that we are all healing from something, no matter how big or small it may seem to ourselves and others; and our healing means we are also making medicine. How might we share our collective medicine for a healed and healthy community?
Closing Plenary & Ceremonies
Thursday April 10th, 2025
11:00AM - 12:45PM
Closing Protocol by Dolly Tatofi, MSW, LCSW
Closing Comments by Sandi Capuano Morrison, MA, CEO, IVAT
Plenary Speaker: Daniel Siegel, MD - Mindsight Institute & UCLA
Dr. Daniel J. Siegel, a Harvard-trained physician and UCLA-trained psychiatrist, is a renowned expert in interpersonal neurobiology, mindfulness, and attachment theory. He is the Founder and Director of Education at the Mindsight Institute and a founding co-director of the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center. An award-winning educator, Dr. Siegel has authored numerous acclaimed works, including The Developing Mind and Mindsight, and co-authored several bestselling parenting books, such as The Whole-Brain Child and No-Drama Discipline. His publications, translated into over 40 languages, explore the integration of the mind, brain, and relationships. Dr. Siegel lectures globally, offering insights to diverse audiences, including healthcare providers, educators, and world leaders.
Art Installation of UMEKE
Mele, Aunty Lynette Paglinawan and Manu in front of Mele’s UMEKE
This plenary address will be an "esoteric expression of function" (Aunty Lynette Paglinawan). What this means is that our Arts, our Mediation, our Foods, our Ways of Thinking, our Agencies, our Policies, and all multiple expressions of society....are now intersecting for a world-wide shared purpose - Healing. Come ready to see and understand a collective ARTS INSTALLATION (via images) of an UMEKE (wooden Hawaiian bowl) that has been fixed via the PEWA process. The PEWA is an ancient way Hawaiians mended broken and split wood bowls. Come to hear how feeling something via art, sound and the written word helps this process of healing actualize, especially in a public setting. Come to hear from the founding visionary of this large UMEKE (fits 20 people inside) and hear her own process in becoming a Haku Hoʻoponopono. Hoʻoulu aku, hoʻoulu mai. Our growth is collective.
Plenary Speaker: Meleanna Aluli Meyer, Kanaka Artist and Community Activist dedicated to ʻike kupuna + mōʻike aloha
Meleanna Aluli Meyer is a practicing artist and arts educator, has dedicated her life to helping creativity blossom in our youth and adults for the purpose of healing. Freedom for sister Mele is found in generating peace and self-awareness through artistic expression found in every medium (paint, sculpture, clay, writing, drawing, film, justice work, and food!) Mele is currently finishing a large and extensive installation focusing on the pewa of a gigantic umeke (bowl) to be exhibited in the upcoming Honolulu Triennial. The pewa is how our wood bowls were repaired and made useful again. This installation will be big enough for 15 people to sit inside (!) and the names found in the KUĒ Petition (Anti-Annexation Petition of 1898) will be recorded and heard within its large and safe walls.
Plenary Speaker: Dr. Manu Aluli Meyer, Kanaka Scholar-Practitioner dedicated to world-wide awakening
Manulani Aluli Meyer, twin sister of Moana, is a global scholar-practitioner dedicated to the role Indigenous thinking will play in world-wide awakening. She is also a haku hoʻoponopono extending and transforming ʻike kupuna, knowledge from our elders, found in this healing practice needed for our times. Manu recognizes the pono of truth and understands that ALOHA is the primal source of our collective evolution. Dr. Aluli Meyer is educated by the natural world and has a passion for growing uluniu - coconut groves – as this teaches her the pono of true wealth and the function of a Sharing Economy. She is an orator and shares that practice with all members of her ʻohana. Her second book: Hoʻopono: Mutual Emergence is coming in 2025.