Hawaii native and America Online co-founder Steve Case held a meet and greet Friday at the Manoa Innovation Center.

Case spoke with fledgling technology businesses, such as local software company, Sprout, and algae production company, Kuehnle.

They're all part of the state's effort to promote technlogy in Hawaii and are an example of what businesses could look like in the future.

"We want to get the economy growing faster.  We want to get unemployment down," said Case.  "The place to focus is on entrepreneurship, so we're delighted to be now launching the Startup Hawaii effort to try to rally support for entrepreneurs and create more of what's called in the technology world 'network effect,' or 'network density.'"

Case is a keynote speaker in the Accelerating Hawaii's Startup Innovation conference being held in Waikiki.