Since 2002, the software Hawaiʻi organizations rely on.

Health systems, financial institutions, schools, government agencies, and established businesses trust Tapiki to design, build, and steward the software they depend on.

Tapiki StormWatch on an iPhone, held up against the Koʻolau mountains under storm clouds, showing the Earthquakes & Tsunami Alerts map of Hawaiʻi Island

Every organization in Hawaiʻi is now a software organization.

A credit union’s members now do most of their banking on a phone. A health system’s patients expect their records to follow them from one provider to the next. State and county agencies answer to accessibility law, and boards want to hear the plan for AI. Most organizations meet all of this with a list of vendors and an IT team stretched across every one of them. That is how projects stall and how systems end up with no clear owner.

That is the gap Tapiki fills. Brian provides the technical leadership, Tapiki builds to that standard, and we stay on to run what we build.

Three ways we work with you.

Technology Partnership

Senior technology leadership on retainer, for organizations without a CTO or leaders who want a peer. Strategy, vendor evaluation, architecture, security posture, board-level reporting, and hands-on engineering when it counts.

Example: CTO, Mission Management Company

Platforms & Applications

Custom platforms, mobile apps, and AI-integrated systems from architecture through production. SaaS platforms, internal tools, field data apps, on-device machine learning.

Examples: Mission Management Company, iFirst Medical, Ecobot, StormWatch

Web & Digital Presence

Public websites for institutions, audited for accessibility and kept secure and current long after launch.

Examples: LA Metro, Central Pacific Bank, Charles Schwab, Alexander & Baldwin, Shinnyo Lantern Floating since 2013

Engagements begin as a new build, a modernization of what you have, or a rescue of a project that stalled. They run from a four-week assessment to multi-year partnerships. We take on four to six serious engagements a year.

How each engagement works

What to expect.

  1. Assess

    An honest technical and organizational read of where you are: systems, vendors, risks, and what is actually slowing you down. If Tapiki is not the right fit, we say so here.

  2. Architect

    Scope, architecture, and success criteria you can take to a board or a procurement office. Fixed where it can be fixed, phased where it cannot.

  3. Build

    Working software early, often reviewed on a weekly cadence. You own the code from day one.

  4. Maintain

    We operate, secure, and improve what we build. Some of our client relationships are in their second decade.

Selected work.

A rider using the Metro Station Guide touchscreen at Union Station

Photo: Lan-Chi Lam

LA Metro · Transit · Web platform and kiosks Kiosks in stations and a site that served millions of riders.

One of the nation’s largest transit agencies needed metro.net to work for riders on phones and a new way to explore stations and public art. Tapiki led the multi-phase migration to adaptive templates, navigation, search, and failover infrastructure, and built the Metro Station Guide for iPad, iPhone, and touchscreen kiosks, launched at Union Station’s 75th anniversary.

The Explore Outdoor Hawaiʻi home page, with navigation for boating, camping, commercial activities, filming, fishing, hiking, hunting, and state parks

DLNR · State agency · Web platform, with Tyler Technologies Gold, Best of the Web – Government Agency, 2024 Horizon Interactive Awards.

Horizon Interactive Awards, Gold Winner

Hawaiʻi’s Department of Land and Natural Resources needed one place for residents and visitors to find hiking, camping, boating, fishing, and hunting information, apply for licenses and permits, and reserve state parks. Tapiki developed Explore Outdoor Hawaiʻi as a subcontractor to Tyler Technologies.

Hawaii Department of Transportation · State agency · Accessibility 139 issues documented. A three-phase plan the agency could fund.

A state agency needed to know where its public web presence fell short of accessibility law. Tapiki audited against WCAG 2.1, documented every issue, and delivered a prioritized remediation plan.

Mission Management Company · National nonprofit sector · AI platform A scoring platform and automated audit reports, built and led as CTO.

A national organization needed a data-driven way to assess church property portfolios. As CTO, Brian designed and built the platform behind the Rapid Renewal Framework: scored readiness surveys, automated 20-page audit reports, and a parcel classification engine drawing on census data and the Claude API.

Camera views of agglutination samples on the left, with the edge detection output on the right

iFirst Medical Technologies · Medical device · On-device AI Fill-level data the device never had, with no hardware change.

A medical device company needed cartridge fill levels without adding sensors. Tapiki built an iOS app that reads fill percentage from live camera frames with Core ML and edge detection, entirely on-device.

Tapiki StormWatch on Apple TV, showing the Hawaii weather map with a hurricane’s radar and forecast cone

Tapiki StormWatch · Public service · iPhone, Apple TV, Apple Watch, web Hawaiʻi’s live emergency weather picture, built and operated by Tapiki.

Hawaiʻi had no single live view of its emergency weather. Tapiki built and runs one, drawing on National Weather Service, National Hurricane Center, USGS, and Pacific Tsunami Warning Center data, free to everyone, with Live Activities and community outage reports added for the 2026 season.

All case studies

Brian Dote

Photo: Tracy Wright Corvo Photography

Technical leadership on every engagement.

Brian Dote founded Tapiki in 2002 to bring Silicon Valley engineering standards to Hawaiʻi organizations. He managed UI engineering for Apple’s .Mac and iCloud, work that produced five US patents, worked on the first iPhone’s web software team, served as Senior Vice President of Mobile and Digital Commerce at Bank of Hawaii, and was the first Chief Innovation Officer at Mid-Pacific Institute. He is currently CTO of Mission Management Company and was Chief Engineer at iFirst Medical Technologies until 2025. He grew up in Waipahu, advises the WHS Academy of Industrial Engineering Technology, and is board president of Education Incubator and board secretary of The HOME Project.

  • Apple
  • Bank of Hawaii
  • Mid-Pacific Institute
  • 5 US patents
  • Hawaii Business “20 for the Next 20”

Brian leads the technical work on every engagement and stays hands-on in the code. Design comes from Hawaiʻi agencies we have worked with for years, and development capacity comes from a small set of US-based partners we have worked with for nearly 20 years. Everyone who touches your work is in Hawaiʻi or is a vetted US partner.

Read Brian’s storyHow we deliver

Past performance

Financial services
Bank of HawaiiCentral Pacific BankCharles SchwabHawaii Central FCU
Healthcare
Hawaiʻi Pacific HealthKuakini Health System
Education
Kamehameha SchoolsHarvard Graduate School of EducationMid-Pacific Institute
Government and transit
State of HawaiʻiHawaiʻi Tourism AuthorityLA MetroLānaʻi Air
Enterprise and hospitality
Alexander & BaldwinHawaiian TelcomHalekulaniPūlama Lānaʻi

Full client list

What clients say

“I’ve worked with Tapiki for nearly 15 years on a number of projects. As the company has evolved, Tapiki has been there to support our growing needs online with new website developments, ongoing maintenance and hosting support and implementing safety measures.”

Tran Chinery Vice President, Marketing & Communications, Alexander & Baldwin

“For many of our new communities, we have used Brian at Tapiki for our website development and have been extremely happy with the end product as well as the timely responses to requests. Brian always explains the work process, and the estimated timeframes. I would not hesitate to recommend Brian and Tapiki.”

Laurie Lee Director of Sales and Marketing, Stanford Carr Development

“Since 2013, we’ve partnered with Brian Dote and Tapiki, who truly understand our mission. For the Shinnyo Lantern Floating Hawaiʻi event, Tapiki has expertly managed our website year-round and adapted during the pandemic by creating an app with a beloved ‘float a virtual lantern’ feature, keeping our community connected.”

Charlene Flanter Co-Executive Director, Nā Lei Aloha Foundation

We’re here to help.

The first step is a conversation about where things stand. You’ll hear from Brian directly within two business days, but usually faster.