ADB is just another
way to spell deal

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By Tim Ruel
Star-Bulletin

The 34th annual conference of the Asian Development Bank served as a backdrop for several entrepreneurial Hawaii companies who worked the international meeting for sources of leads, tips and deals. Some forged partnerships with private Asian companies. Others found government officials looking for the latest technologies and potential contractors.

Although it is impossible to have a complete rundown of every agreement made during last week's events at the Hawaii Convention Center, a few hopeful companies shared their experiences.

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Island of steel

In the next couple weeks, an organization representing dozens of building contractors and manufacturers in Hawaii will find out if it sealed a potential $50 million deal that could solve a major housing problem in Malaysia.

During events at last week's annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank, officials from the Hawaii Pacific Steel Framing Alliance met with council members representing Malaysia's capital city of Kuala Lumpur.

The council members are interested in buying the technology used by the alliance to develop steel-frame homes, a so-called "tech-transfer" deal, said Tim Waite, executive director of the alliance. The officials toured Ewa to see examples of the homes.

The nonprofit alliance, based locally, has 120 member companies in Hawaii and on the West Coast. If the deal happens, some members of the alliance would partner with Malaysian firms to teach them the building techniques. In turn, the Malaysian companies would use the technology to build up to 40,000 homes in Kuala Lumpur, Waite said.

The main attraction for the Malaysian government is the sheer speed of steel framing, which takes six days compared to cement, which takes up to several months, Waite said.

"They need to build these really fast," Waite said.

The government is attempting to house thousands of Malaysians who have relocated to Kuala Lumpur from outside the city, but who have no permanent place to live. The squatters have set up temporary shanties on land that they don't own, posing a real problem for government officials.

Hawaii companies represented by the alliance could end up providing materials and labor for the project, Waite said. More importantly, the plan could serve as a pilot project, leading to other agreements with officials in Vietnam and Thailand, Waite said.

"It could end up lasting quite a few years," he said.

Another kind of security

A security system deflected as many as 30,000 attacks per hour on the computer network that served the annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank at the Hawaii Convention Center.

None of the attempts to breach the system got through, according to security professionals from Compaq Computer Corp., which managed the network. The Houston-based computer and network maker, a top conference sponsor, donated more than $600,000 in equipment for the week-long conference.

More than 200 computers were available for attendees. Compaq also provided its wireless iPaq Pocket computers to top delegates of the bank.

The company used several layers of "firewall" software programs to protect the system. A firewall examines the pieces of data that travel over a computer network in the same way that a bouncer watches entrants to a nightclub.

The Internet is teeming with automated hacker programs that search for vulnerable computers and computer systems, said one security expert who was not affiliated with the meeting.

On top of that, the ADB conference was probably targeted, said Alan Paller, director of research at the System Administration, Networking and Security Institute, a nonprofit based in Bethesda, Md.

Venture for new markets

Big Island seafood grower Kona Bay Marine Resources Inc. found several potential routes for expansion during the conference.

Most notably, the company met with Singapore aquaculture executive Teo Eng Soon, whose company is funded in part by the government of Denmark and the World Bank, and who has vast contacts in Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand.

Following the meetings, Eng Soon is looking into arranging a partnership between Kona Bay and an unidentified company in the Maldives, which could lead to the building of a new plant, said Ivan Lui-Kwan, president and chief executive of Kona Bay.

"I'm fairly optimistic with this gentleman from Singapore," Lui-Kwan said.

The company, which recently changed its name from Kona Bay Oyster & Shrimp, manages specialized ponds that grow young oysters and shrimp.

During last week's meeting of the Asian Development Bank, Lui-Kwan said he also met with officials of the U.S. Commerce Department working in Asia, who pledged to look for development sites.

Lui-Kwan noted that plans for the Maldives are in a preliminary stage. Before making a deal, the company must find out:

>> if the water quality is good enough,

>> if the local marketplace would accept the product and

>> if proper transportation is available.

Kona Bay, a 10-year-old company that is not yet profitable, is also looking for up to $6 million in venture capital. The company has already received about $4 million in funding from HMS Hawaii, the government of Singapore, International Venture Fund and Bank of Hawaii.

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Asian Development Bank