Get ready!
Three Days in Mōʻiliʻili
A three-day celebration of moʻolelo, ea, and place-based innovation — spread across the wahi pana of Mōʻiliʻili through ceremony, global sessions, hands-on labs, and community activations. From the Japanese Cultural Center to Shinnyo-En Hawaiʻi and the Church of the Crossroads, Eahou Fest weaves together cultural practice, skill-building, and collective design to showcase the circular, regenerative, and self-determined futures Hawaiʻi is already building.
Conference Info
Festival Schedule
Three days of sessions, labs, performances, and community activations — opening with ceremony and closing as a working assembly. Global speakers, hands-on skill-building, evening cultural events, and collective design rooted in the work of building a self-determined Hawaiʻi.
Day One — Kīhoʻihoʻi Restoration as Foundation
Friday, May 1, 2026
8:30-10:50 am
Morning Sessions
Opening Kīpaepae
Led by Kumu Kekuhi & Hālau ʻŌhiʻa — a ceremonial opening rooted in Hawaiian protocol to set the spirit of the gathering.
Kekuhi Kealiʻikanakaʻole (Keynote)
Kīhoʻihoʻi Kānāwai & the 5H Kaʻao Framework — an exploration of ancestral frameworks for Hawaiian regeneration and governance.
Eahou: Keoni DeFranco
The vision of a self-determined Hawaiʻi — a bold and grounded articulation of what ea looks like as living practice today.
Purple Kula: ʻŌpio Panel
Hālau Hekili youth at the intersection of tech and ea — young voices on culture, technology, and building futures rooted in place.
Purple Kula: ʻŌpio Panel
Hālau Hekili youth at the intersection of tech and ea — young voices on culture, technology, and building futures rooted in place.
11 am-12:30 pm
Mid-Day Concurrent Sessions
Eahou Global Session: Moananuiakea Storytelling & Media
Indigenous narrative reclamation across Oceania — media makers and storytellers building sovereign communications infrastructure.
Eahou Global Session:ʻĀina Justice & Return
Bold frameworks from Kenya, Bolivia, Aotearoa, Maui — land return and reparative justice in practice across the Pacific and beyond.
Eahou Global Session: Regenerative Finance & Sovereign Wealth
Growing sovereign wealth through regenerative finance models that keep resources, ownership, and abundance within our communities.
1:30-3:40 pm
Afternoon Concurrent Sessions
ʻĀina Foundry: Tech Showcase (1:30-2pm)
A showcase of Purple Maiʻa's new innovation lab. Demos of technology developed and designed to support lāhui.
Eahou Global Session: Food Sovereignty & Resilient Food Systems (210-340pm)
Jamaica to Maui, Guåhan to Peru — food sovereignty in practice. Building regenerative food networks rooted in Indigenous science.
Eahou Global Session: Cooperative Economics (2:10-340pm)
From Oaxaca to Hilo — collective ownership in practice. Models of solidarity economy and cooperative enterprise across communities.
Eahou Global Session: Indigenous Tech & Data Sovereignty (2:10-3:40pm)
Tech governance on our own terms — Hana to Mauritius to Pakistan. Communities reclaiming their data and digital infrastructure.
Day Two — Kānāwai in Practice Skills, Systems, and Sovereignty
Saturday, May 2, 2026
8:30-11 am
Morning Sessions
Hoʻihoʻi EA: EA in Our Lifetime
Brandon Makaʻawaʻawa & ʻIlima Long on the Independence Movement — a candid conversation on sovereignty, activism, and the living practice of ea.
Eahou Global Session:Governance, Sovereignty & Community Power
Chicago to Pueblo Territory, Waiʻanae to Panama — models of community governance and self-determination from across the Pacific and Americas.
11 am-12 pm
Mid-Day Session
Haku Waiwai Design Challenge Intro
An introduction to the collaborative design challenge weaving together the strands of the weekend
1:15-2:45 pm
Afternoon Concurrent Sessions Block #1
Eahou Lab: Digital Creators
Digital Storytelling: Build visual storytelling skills using Canva to design graphics, flyers, and content that carry your community's message across platforms.
Eahou Lab: Hālau ʻŌhia
Kānāwai Mele: Ground your creative practice in ancestral law through song — exploring how mele encodes ecological knowledge, genealogy, and the living frameworks of kānāwai.
Eahou Lab: 'Āina Foundry
Building a Product: Use AI-assisted coding tools to prototype technology rooted in place — building digital tools that reflect ʻāina-based values rather than extractive design.
Eahou Lab: KILO Sensor
KILO Rain Guage: Learn to build and deploy low-cost rain gauge sensors as an entry point into community-led environmental monitoring grounded in the Hawaiian practice of kilo.
Eahou Lab: Kula
Weaving a Kula: Explore how technology can weave a whole community into a living Kula — empowering keiki and ʻōpio to gather pua from mauka to makai and discover their piko, passion, and purpose beyond the classroom.
Solidarity Economy: An introduction to cooperative business models and solidarity economy principles, with grounding in Hawaiian economic frameworks like ahupuaʻa and reciprocal exchange
Lei Making with "Plants & Pua": Learn the art and protocol of lei making with practitioners from Waimānalo — a hands-on practice connecting you to place, plant knowledge, and the living culture of adornment.
3-4:30 pm
Afternoon Concurrent Sessions Block #2
Eahou Lab: Food+ Policy
Food Policy Hackathon: Learn how to navigate and shape food policy from the ground up. This workshop connects farmers, organizers, and advocates with the tools to turn community knowledge into legislative change.
Eahou Lab: Makali'i Metrics
Soil Science: Meet the team behind Hawaiʻi's first commercial soil lab — built toreturn results calibrated for volcanic soils, and put actionable land data directly in the hands of farmers and restorers.
Eahou Lab: 'Āina Foundry
Building an Agent: Use Claude Code to build real tools in real time — a hands-on session for those ready to move from ideas to working prototypes with AI as a collaborator.
Eahou Lab: KILO Sensor
Invitro Library Tissue Culture: An introduction to plant propagation through tissue culture — growing and preserving native and agricultural species to support food sovereignty and ecological restoration.
Eahou Lab: Hui Aloha 'Āina
2029 Expiring Military Leases: Map the strategic window opening in 2029 as military leases expire across Hawaiʻi — and explore how communities, organizers, and land practitioners can prepare to shape what comes next.
Solidarity Economy: Survey the solidarity economy movements already taking root across Hawaiʻi and Oceania, then get to work — mapping local activations and laying groundwork for a regional cooperative network built on shared values of reciprocity and collective wealth.
Lei Making with "Plants & Pua": Learn the art and protocol of lei making with practitioners from Waimānalo — a hands-on practice connecting you to place, plant knowledge, and the living culture of adornment.
Day Three — Haku Waiwai Building What Lasts
Sunday, May 3, 2026
8:30am -12pm
Morning & Mid-Day Sessions
Opening Panel: Honuaiākea with Kialoa Mossman
Honuaiākea Process with Kialoa Mossman. Identifying Kānāwai in our regions through mele and oli.
Eahou Haku Waiwai Design Challenge
A collaborative design challenge weaving together the strands of the weekend — participants build regenerative models grounded in ea, ʻāina, and collective abundance.
12-2:30 pm
Afternoon Session
Haku Waiwai Sharebacks
Groups share out their Haku Waiwai designs — a celebration of collective vision and the abundance woven together across three days of gathering.
Closing Kīpaepae
Collective lei-weaving as shared commitment to carry ea forward — a ceremonial close honoring the work, the people, and the promise of a self-determined Hawaiʻi.
FAQ
Nīnau? Questions?
If you still have questions, please email us at: kokua@purplemaia.org