Welcome to the Kukui Cup!

Aloha, and welcome to the project site for the Kukui Cup. The Kukui Cup Project explores novel ways to utilize concepts from information technology, community-based social marketing, serious games, and educational pedagogy to support sustained change in sustainability-related behaviors. The current focus of the Kukui Cup Project is residence hall energy challenges. In future, we plan to expand to other contexts (primary and secondary schools, offices, residential neighborhoods) and sustainability resources (water, waste, food, etc.) 

Combining the real and online worlds

Kukui Cup challenges blend real world and online activities, all tied together through game mechanics.   In the real world, players participate in workshops, excursions, and artistic/musical events.  They win prizes, and most importantly, learn about their current lifestyle and its impact on sustainability behaviors.  In the online Kukui Cup web application, players earn points, achieve badges, increase their sustainability "literacy" through readings and videos, and use social networking mechanisms to engage with friends and family about the issues raised. The challenge is designed to make the real and online world activities complementary and synergistic.


Kukui Cup challenges are typically designed with the following goals for its participants:
  • Increase knowledge about sustainability issues;
  • Gain insight about the impact of one's current behaviors and how to change them for sustainability;
  • Build community, through awareness of local and national sustainability organizations and initiatives;
  • Create commitment, from minor (turn off the lights when not in use) to major (pursue a profession related to sustainability).

Technology innovations

Kukui Cup challenges are built upon custom open source technology developed by the Collaborative Software Development Laboratory at the University of Hawaii.   Our technology is designed to enable designers to (relatively) easily define and integrate new challenges for energy, water, waste, food, and allow sites to easily customize their instance of the Kukui Cup with the challenges best suited to their situation.