To maintain our prosperity and ensure our future, we must recognize that the world is growing smaller and much more competitive.

Therefore, we need to build on Hawaii's principal strength: OUR PEOPLE. Their diversity and their commitment to the future of their children has always been a hallmark of our state. They can and must be our most powerful economic resource for the future; not just our land and our natural beauty.

However, to be successful our people must be innovative and competitive. Without innovation our keiki will not have the bright future they deserve.

• Innovation Initiative Metrics

Hawai‘i's continued prosperity and ability to preserve its quality of life depends on reducing our dependence on land as the chief driver of economic development and meeting the new challenges of the "global economy."

Hawai‘i's economic development policy should shift toward developing our people and their capacity to innovate.

Hawai‘i's people are under-utilized. Increasing a worker's innovation capacity will enable companies and citizens to compete in a global economy.

Without educated and motivated workers, innovation will not occur or be applied. With innovation, there will be a demand for more jobs.

Innovation is the dynamic process whereby Hawai‘i creates and introduces new ideas and new approaches. It is the process of creating new ideas, then turning them into products or services.

Innovation is a process which links together Hawai‘i's people, Hawai‘i's knowledge, and our many assets to transform ideas, insights and invention into new processes, products and services.

Innovation's measurable results are new or improved products, services or production processes; (i.e., the opening up of a new market; the adoption of a new technology; or an improvement to a business organization or process).

Innovation applies to both existing and new industries. It increases Hawai‘i's standard of living through steady growth in productivity. Productivity growth depends on applying technology in ways that lower costs in order to compete - or by growing revenues through the introduction of more valuable products and services.

Innovation leads to sustainability. We will maintain our standard of living while using fewer natural resources, including land.

Innovation will lead to economic diversification. It will lead to new companies with higher-paying jobs in areas where Hawai‘i has natural competitive advantages.

Innovation will also support Hawai‘i's traditional industries with increased productivity and higher-paying jobs. Innovation has been part of Hawai‘i's history: from the earliest Polynesian voyagers who used innovation to navigate their way over thousands of miles of open ocean, to later immigrants who transformed these islands into a Pacific trading hub. Hawai‘i's early innovators found new ways of farming, fishing, and creating one of the world's most desired destinations.