
Kawika is a freshman at the University of Hawaii at Manoa pursuing a bachelor’s degree in computer science. He grew up on the west side of O’ahu in the ahupua’a of Nanakuli. Kawika plans to use his education to help expand the tech space in Hawai’i. Additionally, his career goal is to leverage tech to give back and improve the community, its people’s lives, and the surrounding environment.
Home Island: O’ahu
High School:
Institution when accepted: University of Hawaii at Manoa
Project Site: Gemini Observatory, Hilo, Big Island HI
Mentor: Emma Kurz
Project Title: Migrating Gemini Archive to an Accessible and Secure Web-Based Application
Project Abstract: Gemini Observatory consists of two telescopes, Gemini North and Gemini South. Documents are currently being stored on internal servers at each location that cannot be accessed remotely through the internet. These documents can contain many different types of data ranging from guides on how to operate a device to the login credentials for software systems. Because each of the servers are in separate locations, there may be redundancy in documentation and the staff at each site may have to create documents that already exist at the other site. The aim of this project is to parse and collect data from this internal database in order to store it into markdown files and enable remote and secure access. The data will be converted into clean organized text and sorted by categories. Sorting the files will allow staff to search in a category for a file rather than looking through 2,000+ files for the data they are interested in. To address the problem of limited access, these organized markdown files will be imported into an online tool called Confluence which can be accessed via the Internet from anywhere by authorized users. The finalized database will allow Gemini North and Gemini South access to files in the same internet location remotely with comprehensible file groupings.