The day started with a welcome speech and a presentation of a timeline showing the accelerated development of the information technology infrastructure and applications over the last 300 years.
Following the timeline, a short 15 minute videotape was shown, which included excerpts from promotional videos submitted by AT&T, GTE-Hawaiian Tel, Oceanic Communications and Pacific Telesis. The videotape was designed to stimulate thinking of the future. It contained scenes from future applications, some beyond the year 2000.
After the videotape was shown, there was a panel discussion. The panelists discussed the existing and future infrastructure: bandwidth, underlying technology, processor speed, connectivity, and related issues. The panelists consisted of the following:
Moderator: Peter Adler, Executive Director, Hawaii Justice Foundation.
Panelists:
Phil Bossert, President, Strategic Information Solutions, Inc.
Richard Turner, Executive Director, OLELO.
Charles Wall, Chief Information Officer, Hawaiian Electric Co.
Dan Wedemeyer, chairman, Department of Communications, University of Hawaii, and one of the principal authors of the first State of Hawaii telecommunications plan in the 1970s.
Garret Yoshimi, Director, Computer Services, East-West Center.
The panel discussion was meant to provide attendees with some background information on the infrastructure they could expect in the year 2000, as well as information on the current infrastructure. The panelists provided a very thought provoking and stimulating discussion, which many attendees found to be very interesting and informative.
Following the panel discussion, nine break out groups met in the following areas: health care, visitor industry, media, higher education, lower education, government, non-profit groups, libraries, and business.
Each group was asked to discuss applications in their field and then report back to the plenary session with their top three applications (yielding a total of 27 applications).
The participants then rejoined the plenary session, at which point each participant voted with the mock money they were earlier given in their registration packets. Each participant was given mock money to vote with consisting of the following:
| Quantity | Type of bill |
|---|---|
| Public Money | |
| 1 | $10,000 |
| 1 | $5,000 |
| 5 | $1,000 |
| Private Money | |
| 3 | $100,000 |
| 3 | $50,000 |
| 6 | $10,0000 |
| Total | $530,000 |
Participants were encouraged to lobby each other, to trade money, to block vote and to otherwise engage in behavior consistent with a member of Congress.