CoBE TO BE RECIPIENT OF MAJOR ENDOWMENT
By Dr. Marcia Sakai, Dean, UHH College of Business and Economics

The UH Hilo Development Office has notified us that Barry Taniguchi, the Hawai`i Island Chair for the University of Hawaii Centennial Campaign, plans to fund a $10,000  endowment through KTA Superstores and K. Taniguchi Ltd.  This is a major gift that funds the need to reinvest in faculty capacity.  This is imperative for any knowledge organization such as the University.  Our College of Business and Economics is pleased with this expression of support from the business community and looks forward to this investment in faculty being paid back in the form of enhanced student and community learning experiences.  An example follows.

Henk Rogers, President and CEO of Blue Planet Software, spoke to a standing room only crowd of CoBE students and faculty at a November 19 event held in the University Classroom Building (UCB). This was the first in a planned speaker series featuring entrepreneurship.  Also in attendance were students from the UH Hilo computer science program, business academy students from Hilo High School and Waiakea High School, and students of the Junior Achievement mini-company program.

One of the visionaries of computer games, Henk Rogers helped change the face of this world’s fastest growing entertainment industry.   He is the entrepreneur who is responsible for bringing Tetris, one of its greatest games, to the U.S and world market.   Tetris is the world’s most popular computer game and recently exceeded the 70 million units sold mark.

We learned the history of how he was successful in acquiring the international development rights to Tetris through a documentary video.  Working in Japan’s fledgling computer game industry in 1989, Rogers traveled to Moscow, still under Communist rule, befriended Tetris creator Alexey Pajitnov, and won the rights to the game in a battle of wills against a well-established European publisher and the KGB.  In 1996, when Tetris rights reverted back to Pajitnov, Rogers returned to the U.S. and settled in Hawaii, where he formed Blue Planet Software to manage the intellectual property rights for Tetris. Under Blue Planet’s stewardship, Tetris continued to evolve and improve, while maintaining its basic integrity.

The value for our students was to be exposed to Henk’s entrepreneurial model.  His communication and audience interaction was engaging, dynamic, and youthful, all of which combined with knowledge of the Tetris story produced a stellar event.  Henk’s special invited guest, Alexey Pajitnov, brought the house down with applause.  It could not have been a more wonderful treat for those present.