He’s taking a Plunger to the Brain Drain in Hawai‘i

Ashten Akemoto, Engineer and Technical Co-Founder @ Normal Robotics Lab Ashten can be reached at ashten@normallab.co

A year ago, Ashten Akemoto had a plane ticket, a job, and a place to live in Japan. He was going to take a break from his education at UH Mānoa to get some work experience.

But two days before his flight, he dropped it all to work in a warehouse next to Napa Auto Parts in Kailua.

I was shocked when he told me this.

Now Ashten is an engineer and technical co-founder at a local startup, where he is working in that warehouse to build a state-of-the-art heat pump to replace traditional AC units.

Why in the world would he drop everything?

“Extraordinary results require extraordinary decisions—and the best time to start doing something really hard is right now.”

Here’s the story…

In the days leading up to his departure last year, Ashten met a guy named Josh. Josh is not your normal Joe Schmoe.

When they first met, he approached Ashten dripping wet from surfing…and 5 minutes late.

Josh was looking for a talented engineer. After learning about Ashten’s skills, he asked Ashten to quit his job (which hadn’t even started) and start a company with him 😯

Of course, no one would change their life plans for some random stranger, right? RIGHT????

That’s what Ashten thought—until he did just that.

10 months later, Ashten is guiding the future of a startup backed by $3 million in venture capital, with offices in Honolulu, San Francisco, and Tokyo (coming soon).

So what exactly does Ashten do?

Before he became a co-founder at Normal Robotics Lab, he worked for Astrobotic (a cool space tech company) and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

Literal rocket science? Yeah, pretty sweet 🚀 ⬇️

Now, Ashten and the team at Normal Robotics Lab are trying to build a state-of-the-art heat pump to replace traditional AC units and gas furnaces. It’s called Airform.

Airform, in very simple terms, is a much more efficient and effective improvement to air conditioning.

Traditional AC is inefficient. It is also the single greatest contributor to a household’s carbon footprint.

Ashten is developing a product that can easily be installed in a home to provide advanced indoor climate control. If successful, he can help reduce the carbon footprint in Hawaiʻi and support the state’s green transition.

Ashten does a bunch of everything: design, business development, talking to big companies like Mitsubishi—you name it. In May, he spent most of the month in California helping start Normal’s office there.

Oh yeah, did I mention he doesn’t have a college degree? 👨‍🎓

Ashten hopes to create a product that is eventually adopted as the standard in Hawaiʻi and beyond.

A few things I learned from Ashten:

1. Sometimes it helps to be crazy

Ashten literally changed the course of his life. When he was presented with the opportunity to build a company that addresses climate sustainability in Hawaiʻi and creates jobs for local residents, he chose the adventure.

And Josh played a large part in that.

“Josh is someone who you can immediately tell is thinking about too many things at once,” he said. “His visions of the future and robotics are honestly pretty crazy but talking to him somehow makes that far away future seem a little bit more possible.”

2. It’s possible to be ambitious and help Hawai‘i

Ashten is playing his part in bringing tech jobs for local people in Hawaiʻi.

“Being born and raised here and attending UH, I realized that there is currently no place for my personal goals in robotics and sustainability on this island,” he said.

“Leaving the island for work shouldn’t be the only choice for young folks and staying on island shouldn’t be a compromise.”

And Ashten gave me the PERFECT quote to end this newsletter:

“Normal will wield a toilet plunger to the brain drain of this island and pull talent back in.”