Honolulu Tech Week 2025 is confirmed for Monday to Sunday, September 8–14, 2025, with 50-plus events across more than 20 venues, connecting 3,000 participants through panels, keynotes, workshops, mixers, product launches, hackathons, and community meetups that spotlight Hawaiʻi’s growing innovation economy. The official site and calendar list the dates, mission, and scale, while partner organizations and venue hosts corroborate the week-long footprint and open, community-hosted format spanning coworking spaces, university hubs, corporate offices, museums, and restaurants across Honolulu. Anchored by the mission to accelerate tech talent, capital, and adoption in Hawaiʻi, HTW convenes founders, student engineers, industry executives, remote professionals, content creators, and policy and education leaders in a curated series that blends learning and relationship-building in equal measure.
Dates, scope, and who attends
- Dates: September 8–14, 2025 (Monday–Sunday), a full week of daytime and evening programming across the city.
- Scale: 50+ events, 20+ venues, 3,000+ participants expected, with rolling confirmations published on the live calendar and social feeds.
- Audience: Founders, student engineers, technical leads, creative technologists, investors, remote workers, educators, civic leaders, and sector stakeholders spanning AI, cloud, cyber, UX, blockchain, climate, agrifood, defense tech, and more.
What to expect in 2025
- Citywide, community-hosted events: The week is a decentralized festival of talks, workshops, show-and-tells, labs, mixers, and showcases curated by local leaders and global partners, rather than a single-venue conference.
- Program cadence: Morning coffees and skill-building workshops, midday panels and product demos, late-afternoon fireside chats, and evening mixers and meetups, all structured to maximize discovery and cross-pollination.
- Strategic themes: AI across sectors, UX and customer experience for island markets, blockchain and Web3, defense and dual-use innovation, ocean and climate tech, agrifood systems, edtech and talent pathways, and public-private collaboration models.
Confirmed calendar highlights
The public calendar and partner pages surface select headline sessions and community anchors, with more being approved each week:
- HTW 2025 Pre-Tech Week Overview + Q&A (virtual): Early September briefing for attendees and hosts to plan schedules and ask logistics questions.
- Hawaiʻi’s Waves of Innovation (HTDC at Entrepreneurs Sandbox): An opening-week anchor hosted by the state’s innovation agency, aligning HTW with Hawaiʻi’s broader tech development strategy.
- “Adapting Your Creative Business to AI Integration” with Kwaku Alston & La Mer Walker (Inspiration Hawaiʻi Museum): A creative-tech salon bridging AI and media arts; ticketed, listed at $25–$30 on partner calendars.
- The Agent Lab: Build a Team of AI Agents for Flow & Focus (Hawaiʻi Women in Tech, Hawaiʻi Center for AI): A hands-on AI productivity workshop (listed as sold out), signaling strong demand for practitioner-level AI sessions.
- Leading in the Age of AI Fireside Chat (Digital Promise, Hawaiʻi Women in Tech): An education-forward conversation on AI leadership and learning ecosystems.
- AI Agrifood Tech Summit (RISE Center): Precision agriculture, supply chains, and sustainable food systems through an AI lens, tailored to Hawaiʻi’s agrifood context.
- Talent Leadership Mixer & DJ Set (BoxJelly): Workforce strategy meets culture, focused on building teams and pipelines from Hawaiʻi, framed as a networking and hiring forum.
- Pacific Blockchain Summit: Decentralized technologies for Pacific commerce, governance, and community, expanding the regional dimension of HTW.
- UX 101 with UXHI: Foundational user and customer experience practices tuned for island markets, tourism, and services.
- Blue Startups Cohort 17 Demo Day (Entrepreneurs Sandbox): One of the Pacific’s leading accelerators showcases new ventures to investors and partners.
- Pasifika in Tech Pau Hana: Celebrating Pacific Islander talent and networks in tech, centering cultural grounding and collaboration.
- Bitcoin Surf Social (Waikīkī): Community networking paired with surf, mixing crypto culture with Hawaiʻi’s beach lifestyle.
- HTW 2025 Official VIBE CODING Hackathon (Sandbox): A centerpiece hackathon that sold out in advance, underscoring the developer momentum around the week.
Organizers, partners, and signals of support
- Official hub: HonoluluTechWeek.com serves the overview, mission, and registration; the lu.ma master calendar provides real-time listings and approvals for community-hosted events.
- Institutional backing: Hawaiʻi Technology Development Corporation (HTDC) promotes HTW as aligned with state innovation goals and talent development, inviting the broader ecosystem to participate and host.
- University ecosystem: The University of Hawaiʻi ICS calendar lists HTW with dates and framing around talent, capital, and adoption, reinforcing academic-industry bridges during the week.
- Social proof: Official Instagram and partner accounts amplify dates, track RSVPs, and share sold-out notices, indicating high demand for hands-on AI, startup showcases, and community mixers.
How to plan the week
- Register early: Sign up on the official site to unlock the calendar and updates; subscribe to the lu.ma calendar to receive approvals and capacity alerts as events publish and fill.
- Map by venue clusters: Entrepreneurs Sandbox and Kakaʻako venues, BoxJelly, RISE Center, university spaces, and downtown offices form logical clusters; plan travel time between clusters to avoid missing transitions.
- Mix formats: Balance deep-dive workshops and summits with lighter mixers and pau hana sessions to build relationships — a core value in Hawaiʻi’s business culture.
- Watch capacity: Many labs, hackathons, and niche salons sell out; join waitlists and identify alternates in the same time block to stay productive.
- Consider the supporter membership: Some guides flag a low-cost supporter tier that may grant priority perks at select events while signaling commitment to the community.
Travel tips and logistics
- Where to stay: Kakaʻako/Kapiʻolani corridor, Ala Moana/Waikīkī edges, or downtown for easy access to multiple clusters; expect standard September demand, so book early.
- Getting around: TheBus, Biki bikes, rideshare, and walkable corridors around Kakaʻako help avoid parking stress; leave buffers for peak transitions, particularly late afternoon.
- What to bring: Light layers for strong AC indoors, water bottle, notebook or tablet, business cards or QR contact, and a flexible agenda synced to the lu.ma calendar for live changes.
Why Honolulu Tech Week matters
- Bridge market: Hawaiʻi’s position between North America and Asia, defense and civilian markets, and tourism and diversified sectors creates a unique testing ground for dual-use and cross-cultural solutions — a recurring theme across HTW.
- Talent and retention: By convening students, remote workers, and founders, the week underscores local career pathways and aims to reduce brain drain, with HTDC and university partners reinforcing the pipeline.
- Community-first model: Decentralized hosting across companies, nonprofits, and grassroots organizers makes HTW a living map of the ecosystem, not just a centralized conference.
Sample 3-day plan
- Day 1: Morning AI workshop; lunchtime founder fireside; afternoon “Waves of Innovation” at Sandbox; evening mixer in Kakaʻako.
- Day 2: UXHI design session; Blue Startups Demo Day; Pasifika in Tech Pau Hana.
- Day 3: Pacific Blockchain Summit; talent mixer at BoxJelly; late community social or hackathon drop-in if space opens.
Verified details at a glance
- Dates: September 8–14, 2025.
- Scale: 3,000+ attendees, 50+ events, 20+ venues.
- Calendar: Live listings and RSVPs on lu.ma/hitechweek; rolling event approvals daily.
- Organizers and partners: Honolulu Tech Week (official), HTDC, university and community hosts, company venues.
- Highlighted sessions: AI, UX, blockchain, agrifood, talent, demo day, hackathon, and community pau hanas; multiple sellouts already posted.
Mark the calendar, subscribe to the live schedule, and map a route through Kakaʻako’s venues and Sandbox sessions with buffers for real conversations. Whether attending for AI tooling, startup discovery, or community building, Honolulu Tech Week is designed to help talent connect with opportunity and ideas connect with Hawaiʻi’s real-world markets. Register now, curate a personal program, and be part of a week that turns talk into traction across Oʻahu’s innovation scene.