Current global, national and state economic crises present us with daunting short- and long-term challenges. The immediate threat is to people's jobs, homes and the "safety net," but the far-reaching fear is that our audacious hope of a sustainable future for Hawai'i will fall victim to budget cuts and failures to invest in the Innovation Economy.

Most real economic growth is the result of innovation. Therefore, if we are to survive and thrive amidst the worst downturn in decades, we must innovate our way to a more sustainable and robust economy. To do this we need to capitalize quickly on the tremendous growth opportunities here in Hawai'i by investing in high-return-on-investment, high-tech industries.

Step one is for our state government leaders to translate an optimal percentage of Hawai'i's multi-million dollar fair share of President Obama's economic revitalization into working capital to help develop a more locally relevant and sustainable economic engine.

We must redefine infrastructure for an island chain. While highways and bridges are important, what Hawai'i needs more is rapid conversion to a broad-based system of renewable power generation and a smart integrated electrical grid to effectively manage the multiple sources.

National defense requires ever-vigilant military R&D — and homeland security for an island outpost requires much more local control of our food, fuel and health. In case of terrorist attack, natural disaster or unthinkable pandemic, we must be better able to supply ourselves with whatever it takes to meet our basic survival needs — from diversified ag to biofuels to vaccines for Pacific Rim diseases.

Hawai'i's most distinctive qualities represent a great foundation for a more sustainable economy.

Our unique geography, ocean environment and natural resources provide us with potential sustainable differential advantage in everything from aquaculture and tropical medicine to wind, wave and solar energy to dual-use astronomy and aerospace.

Our wonderfully diverse culture provides us with exceptional sources of creativity and entrepreneurship for the traditional arts and sciences as well as modern multimedia entertainment.

We have the technology — if we can commercialize more of our university and military research bases. We have the talent — if we can reverse our brain drain. If we can attract sufficient local and outside capital to invest in our strategic growth opportunities and entrepreneurs, we can realize our incredible capability for building a sustainable and green economic engine.

To achieve our island dream of true sustainability, we must develop the equivalent of a multi-stage ecosystem — beginning with a fully functioning and continuously expanding pipeline of new products that addresses unmet societal wants and needs.

The magic of high-tech innovation actually occurs over a series of increasingly rigorous stages — from creative idea to science project to start-up venture to growth business with large-scale production, distribution and sales. Arguably less than one in 10 efforts ever graduates from one stage to the next, with very few companies transcending one-hit wonder status to develop multi-generational product lines and achieve longer-term sustainability.

The end goal consists of high-tech corporations headquartered in Hawai'i with R&D labs that are worldwide centers of excellence, because they can generate billions of dollars in revenues and thousands of high-quality jobs. When they re-invest approximately 5 percent to 10 percent of annual revenues back into R&D, they create self-sustaining systems that reduce dependence on government supports and power the Innovation Economy.

Finally, the absolute key to sustainability is locally owned and developed intellectual property . Today, from the time we get up in the morning till we go to bed at night — driving cars, using computers, watching television, taking medications — we are primarily utilizing high-tech products developed outside Hawai'i, i.e., we import technology IP and export our dollars. We must reverse this imbalance of trade so that other states and nations utilize more Hawai'i IP and pay us the royalties, licensing fees and revenues. If we want more local control of our economic future, we must develop our local intellectual property — not just our traditional real property.

Achieving operationally effective sustainability demands that we (a) pursue Hawai'i's strategic growth opportunities in science and technology, (b) continue to build our state's innovation pipeline of creative and useful ideas and (c) develop our local entrepreneurs and intellectual property. Therefore, we need leaders who can articulate this vision, build the necessary coalitions and inspire us to achieve our Islands' enormous potential.

Amidst omnipresent global competition and periodic crises, we must captain our own change and command our own future —now and forever!

Shan Steinmark is the founder of Strategic Transitions Research. He wrote this commentary for The Advertiser.