$1.25 Million Grant Fuels Hawaiʻi’s Advanced Hazard Monitoring Initiative

A collaborative effort between the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and Georgia Tech has secured a grant of $1.25 million from the National Science Foundation. This funding aims to develop innovative, low-cost sensors for real-time hazard monitoring across Hawaiʻi. The project focuses on enhancing the safety of local communities by providing actionable data related to environmental threats such as wildfires, droughts, flooding, and tsunamis.

The initiative will produce sensors that can be printed and deployed within the same day, offering communities a fast and efficient way to gather critical information. These sensors are designed to measure various environmental factors, including water quality and soil contamination levels. Data collected will be transmitted to a compact, AI-enabled device that is smaller than a mobile phone. Users will access this information through a publicly available dashboard, allowing for timely decision-making.

Community-Centric Design Approach

To ensure the project’s effectiveness, the technology will be co-designed with local stakeholders who have kuleana, or responsibility, for managing land and water resources in Hawaiʻi. This includes collaboration with land stewardship organizations, Hawaiian-language immersion schools, and community colleges. Elders, educators, and residents will play an integral role in guiding project priorities, experimenting with prototypes, and defining success criteria.

Tyler Ray, principal investigator and Associate Professor at the UH Mānoa College of Engineering, emphasized the initiative’s aim to streamline the process from concept to deployment. “We can shorten the path from idea to instrument and build sensors tuned to local priorities without relying on centralized, hard-to-access facilities,” he noted. The project aspires to create a robust, affordable, and replicable design-to-deployment pathway that operates effectively on the islands.

The sensors will pair with a durable edge device capable of harvesting energy, running machine learning models, and functioning effectively even in areas with limited network connectivity. An open library of circuits and firmware will facilitate rapid customization of sensors to measure a variety of targets, including pH levels, turbidity, and heavy metal contamination.

Strengthening Community Connections

This initiative builds upon existing relationships across Oʻahu, Maui, and Kauaʻi, engaging local educators, resource stewards, and residents in the design process. The team plans to conduct iterative design workshops and peer exchanges to foster collaboration between partner sites. A capstone gathering will synthesize findings and disseminate open designs for broader use.

Josiah Hester, a Native Hawaiian and Associate Professor of Computing at Georgia Tech, expressed enthusiasm for the project’s potential. “Deploying AI devices in austere environments, making AI interpretable and understandable, and providing these capabilities to everyone are key goals we will achieve,” he stated. Hester emphasized his commitment to translating technology that supports environmental stewardship.

The project also aims to provide hands-on training opportunities, connecting students from K–12 schools to community colleges and research universities with practical experiences at partner sites. The open-source hardware, software, and design artifacts developed during the project will be made available for adaptation in island, rural, and urban settings that face similar environmental hazards.

Through this initiative, the University of Hawaiʻi and Georgia Tech seek to empower local communities, ensuring that the technologies developed provide lasting value and contribute to effective decision-making regarding environmental management and disaster response.