What is the name of your organization?
Ulu Lahui Foundation
What is the name of your solution?
Kumu Connect
Provide a one-line summary or tagline for your solution.
An AI-powered platform that enables educators to generate culturally grounded, place-based computer science lessons in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi.
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Honolulu, HI
In what country is your solution team headquartered?
United States
What type of organization is your solution team?
Nonprofit
Film your elevator pitch.
What specific problem are you solving?
Hawai‘i's public schools—particularly Hawaiian language immersion (Kaiapuni) programs—face a critical shortage of culturally and linguistically relevant computer science (CS) curricula. With a statewide mandate requiring CS education implementation by 2025, educators are under immense pressure to deliver lessons in a field where they often lack expertise and resources. This challenge is exacerbated in Kaiapuni schools, where ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi is the medium of instruction, and nearly all instructional materials must be created from scratch. Native Hawaiians remain deeply underrepresented in the STEM workforce, making the lack of systemic, culturally sustaining CS education an issue of equity, access, and self-determination.
What is your solution?
Kumu Connect is a generative AI-powered ecosystem designed to support educators in Hawaiian immersion schools by enabling the creation of culturally relevant, place-based CS lesson plans in both ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi and English. The platform integrates advanced AI models (e.g., Gemini, GPT-4) with a robust, community-curated dataset grounded in Hawaiian language, values, and ecological knowledge. Through an intuitive, web-based interface, educators can co-create lesson content by dialoguing with an AI assistant that adapts curriculum to specific ahupua‘a (land divisions), mo‘olelo (stories), and culturally significant themes. Kumu Connect reduces planning time, enhances cultural alignment, and ensures broader access to meaningful CS education—particularly for historically underserved learners.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
Kumu Connect serves Kaiapuni educators and the Native Hawaiian students they teach across public and charter schools throughout Hawaiʻi. These educators, often stretched thin and under-resourced, gain powerful tools to efficiently generate CS lessons that honor local knowledge systems, language revitalization, and community values. Students benefit from instruction that is not only technically rigorous but also culturally affirming and rooted in place, thereby enhancing engagement, identity development, and long-term participation in STEM. By bridging cutting-edge AI with Indigenous education, Kumu Connect catalyzes a new paradigm of equity-driven, culturally sustaining computing education.
