Pacific Asian Center for Entrepreneurship is among this year’s honorees for Pacific Business News’ annual Inno Fire Awards. To view the other winners, click here.
A part of Shidler College of Business at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, the Pacific Asian Center for Entrepreneurship offers a robust lineup of educational programming and resources for students across disciplines. Since its launch in 2000, PACE has worked to guide and inspire students to become what it calls “innovative problem-solvers” through networking events, workshops, pitch contests and more. Now, with the recent launch of a new live-work-learn center, the Walter Dods, Jr. RISE Center, PACE has expanded its reach to more students and grown its programming to further increase its impact. RISE, which stands for Residences for Innovative Student Entrepreneurs, opened last August and encourages collaboration and innovation among its residents.
For its work and recent expansion and accomplishments, PACE is this year's Blazer honoree for the 2024 Inno Fire Awards.
Responses from Sandra Fujiyama, executive director
What’s been your organization’s biggest accomplishment to date? Making the Walter Dods, Jr. RISE Center a reality for our students and community. The six-story, mixed-use housing facility and innovation center is just one of five entrepreneurial living-learning communities across the U.S. at this scale. RISE opened at UH Manoa last fall – welcoming over 300 student residents of diverse backgrounds representing every college at UHM. With the generous support from the Shidler College, our donors and community of volunteers, PACE held more than 100 activities in the innovation center at RISE and more than doubled our impact – supporting more than 1,000 students, inspiring more than 100 new startup ideas, and disbursing more than $250,000 in awards and scholarships.
What about your business excites you the most right now? With our new innovation center at the Walter Dods, Jr. RISE Center, the opportunities for every UH student are endless. The combination of PACE’s 15-plus programs with PACE’s new innovation center at RISE — which includes co-working and maker spaces, a recording studio, event space, conference rooms and startup incubation space — gives students from any background and discipline the resources to turn their ideas into reality. In the upcoming year, PACE is looking to pilot collaborations with local companies and organizations, such as Servco, Maui Varieties, Ltd./HouseMart, and Hawaii Leadership Forum, to create hands-on learning opportunities for our students and to connect them directly with our community organizations and leaders. We will also be celebrating the 25th anniversary of our UH Venture Competition in spring 2025.
What is one thing you think we need as a state to cultivate a robust tech and innovation sector?
Fueled by their dedication to resilience, sustainability, and the vision of a better Hawaii, numerous individuals and organizations are already actively advancing our tech and innovation ecosystem. Essential to nurturing and cultivating a thriving tech and innovation sector is the attainment of a unified vision and strategy, fostering collaboration toward shared goals.
