As Honolulu Star­-Advertiser reporter Kevin Knodell stated Nov. 12 (“Hawaii playing a central part in the ‘Pacific Century’”), the University of Hawaii at Manoa-based East-West Center continues to play a role in America’s “pivot to the Pacific.” However, EWC is not just about diplomats bumping fists and shaping foreign policy.

As I discovered on a recent visit to East Timor, also known as Timor Leste, one of the world’s newest nations, the magnitude of technology and expertise transferred from Hawaii to far-flung Pacific nations is both impressive and inspiring.

While in Dili, the capital, I spoke with a number of Timorese EWC alums. The cast of characters included a civil engineer, several tour operators, a filmmaker, a political scientist and other entrepreneurs.

They were all eager to discuss the various skills, know-how and technology gained from EWC internships and related University of Hawaii scholarships. But it wasn’t just what Timorese could do for themselves. It was what they could do for their country.

For example, when Egidio Da Purificacao Soares, founder of Timor Sightseeing, came to Honolulu on his EWC fellowship, he interned with Roberts of Hawaii. He honed his transportation repertoire and navigated around Honolulu using Google Maps. However, upon returning to Dili, he found the app wanting. It would occasionally portray two-way roads as one-way streets and even depicted a nonexistent bridge crossing a river. He communicated this to Google and, with the cooperation of Timor Leste’s Ministry of Tourism, invited a team from Google Street View to come over and fix things.

For Fatima Norberto, owner of Fatima Cafe in Dili, and Jonias Exposto, a tour guide, internships in Waimea Valley became a crucible for tourism marketing.

Norberto said Waimea Valley was instrumental in helping her formulate her plan to promote Timor Leste coffee, the country’s No. 1 agricultural product. “The basics,” she said, “packaging, presentation and even putting together daily menus, were invaluable.”

Following his Waimea Valley apprenticeship, Exposto was inspired to found his own travel company, Timor Indigenous Tours. “I came back from Hawaii knowing how to use QuickBooks, design my own brochures and create my own website,” Exposto said.

Francesca Maya, a Dili-­based filmmaker and media consultant, was awarded an EWC scholarship in 2004, and she honed her writing, directing, editing and storytelling chops at UH Manoa. “What’s more,” she said, “being in Hawaii allowed me to reconnect with my culture and identity.” Why? As a youngster, during the brutal Indonesian occupation of East Timor, “thinking about culture and history wasn’t an option,” she said.

Ariel Mota Alves, who is completing his Ph.D. thesis in political science at UH Manoa, is researching the impact of carbon offsets in Timor Leste. Said Alves, “What happens when impoverished farmers, who previously eked out a living growing rice, now earn a respectable income planting mahogany, teak and other rare woods?” Trees, he explained, now occupy land that was used to grow food. He wants to understand how this might affect the food supply. By tracking land use with sophisticated software acquired from UH, he’s finding out.

Krispen Fernandes is one of the most senior EWC alums in East Timor. The recipient of a Ph.D. in civil and environmental engineering from UH Manoa in 2010, he parlayed his skills into a variety of research and infrastructure projects ranging from hydrological studies for the city of Dili to analyzing drainage for the nation’s irrigation schemes. Nowadays much of his time is spent coaching younger staff, “an aspect of my work,” he told me, “I enjoy the most.”

His engineering expertise is also helping him transition his family farm to green energy by employing photovoltaic systems for pumping water and illumination. His 50 head of cattle allow him to create biofertilizer to cultivate vegetables and fruits, including edamame and watermelon. His livestock also generates biogas, which he is using to produce plant-based protein such as tofu and tempeh.

Fernandes’ ingenuity and creativity struck me as typical of the Timorese I interviewed.

Timor Leste is not an easy place to grow up in. It’s a poor country still reeling from generational trauma produced by World War II and the subsequent quarter-century of Indonesian occupation, which led to the death of up to 180,000 people.

It’s not just a matter of Americans offering the Timorese airplane tickets to Honolulu and scholarships. We can learn a great deal from their resilience, optimism and resourcefulness.

Rob Kay, a Honolulu-based writer and East-West Center alum, is the creator of fijiguide.com. He can be reached at Robertfredkay@gmail.com.