20 Skills for the Next 20

I am deeply honored to be included in Hawaii Business Magazine’s 2026 “20 for the Next 20” list. This annual award recognizes local professionals whose work and leadership are expected to significantly shape our state over the coming decades. Inspired by the team at Hawaii Business Magazine and the amazing awardees on the list, I decided to sit down and make my own “20 for the Next 20” to share with our community.

As thank you to all my supporters, both new and old, below are 20 skills for the next 20 years to help us all thrive and ride the coming AI wave together.

This recognition prompted me to take some time to articulate my thoughts on the future. While reflecting on the next two decades, I decided to create my own “20 for the Next 20” list, focusing specifically on the most important skills we need to develop right now.

In my role exploring emerging technology, I get to peer behind the horizon a bit and see the waves starting to swell towards us. Artificial intelligence is a massive set changing the landscape of countless careers. Past the hype, real shifts are happening. We are moving deeply into an era where digital systems take independent action to solve complex problems.

In this environment, technical skills expire quickly. The true currency of the future workforce relies heavily on deeply human skills.

As I run AI workshops for businesses and communities across Hawai’i, I am seeing vastly increased value placed on lived experience and expertise. At the same time, the traditional steps used to foster that experience are hollowing out. Highly experienced workers can now vastly increase their output using autonomous tools, while fresh graduates often do not know where to start.

So what does distilling lived experience look like and what skills do we need to foster? I want to help frame this new landscape to explore these new era.

Here are the 20 skills I envision will become essential to thrive in this new era. These principles will prepare Hawaii’s students to be the workforce and leaders of the future. They apply equally to all of us navigating this coming wave together.