Michelle Voong
PAVE
PAVE Is an AAPI Entrepreneur Convention that gathers the community to explore, learn, and discover ways to grow their businesses with various speaker panels, workshops, business showcases, networking opportunities and more.
Artist/Thesis Statement
The AAPI Business community continues to battle xenophobia, underfunding, language barriers, lack of banking relationships, and the negative effects of COVID-19 in their businesses and community. Although there are some resources already available, the lack of marketing and accessibility, especially for those with language barriers and technical unfamiliarity, makes finding and understanding these programs and resources difficult. Q.J. Shi, director of the Asian Business Empowerment Council once asked “how can we get resource providers to do targeted outreach and actually meet with these businesses and meet the community where they are?”
Pave is an AAPI Entrepreneur Convention that helps combat these numerous issues by creating a safe space for the AAPI business community to explore and grow. This convention would simultaneously support and celebrate AAPI entrepreneurs by offering various workshops, speakers, networking opportunities, tabling space, and more.
Many business owners from the AAPI community value a sense of familiarity, hence why they prefer to seek help and support from family and friends rather than trying to find it from other resources and programs. With that in mind, PAVE intentionally veers away from the traditionally corporate design expected from a business brand. Rather, we focus on the beauty and inclusiveness that the culture of the AAPI community has to offer and put that at the forefront of our branding to create a community at PAVE that all our guests can feel a part of
