Providing LGBTQ+ designers of color with free and accessible education, mentorship, and networking opportunities.
About QTBIPOC Design
Our Vision
We strive to instill confidence in our community by empowering the next generation of QTBIPOC (queer, trans, Black, Indigenous, and people of color) with the knowledge and tools to excel within the design industry.
Our Mission
By educating and empowering marginalized communities through our workshops and masterclasses, we hope to make design teams more equitable by infusing the design industry with more diverse perspectives.
Our Approach
We make inclusivity and equity a practice rather than just a principle. We ground our everyday practices in creating a safe space for every race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual preference, background, and disability.
Our Values
Centering Joy
We center joy within our work and hold space for one another as an active form of liberation.

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Integrity Above All
We value transparency and truthfulness, even when it’s difficult. We conduct work honestly and with accountability.

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Everyone is Creative
We believe that everyone has the capacity to be creative. Design is not gated to race, social class, etc. etc. We accept that there are many ways to reach the same goal.
Our Members
Our community is exclusively for those who identify as both LGBTQIA and BIPOC.
We are steadfast at creating a safe and nurturing space for our community and no form of bullying, intolerance, or prejudice will be permitted in our spaces (check out our Code of Conduct and Inclusivity Statement)
We celebrate all forms of joy, creativity, and expression from our community.
Our Team

Steven Wakabayashi
Founder & President, he/him
After years of leading design and UX with many notable brands and agencies, Steven always noticed the lack of diversity within the creative teams. And in hiring, there was always a severe deficit of diverse talent. QTBIPOC Design was founded to provide education and community for those less represented within our design industry.

Jamie Chow
Placeholder Title, She/they/🧜🏻♀️
QTBIPOC is important to me because we’re creating a safe space for underrepresented and marginalized designers, researchers, and world delighter within our community to foster and hone our creative and diverse skillsets. Together, we are creating a space for QTBIPOC designers to bloom into their fullest potential.

Kenny Chang
Community Director, he/him
Kenny is a UX/UI Designer passionate about advocating for diverse and historically underrepresented communities through design and social justice. He is excited to be a part of the QTBIPOC Design community and to be able to support other LGBTQ+ designers of color!

Marian Corpus
UX Designer , She/her
Marian is a UX Designer who combines her passion for art and science to create impactful user experiences. She is committed to uplifting and showing representation for the QTBIPOC design community.

Meher Chand
Social Media Manager, She/her
Meher is a UX Designer and student at the University of Washington studying psychology and informatics. She enjoys connecting with other designers in the community and finding ways to leverage her skills to uplift others. In her free time she enjoys working on illustration and making music with friends.

Stefan Kovalik
Technology Director, He/him
Stefan is a UX designer and creative consultant with ten years of work experience, specializing in the conception, design, development, analysis, and improvement of user’s experiences.

Ivan Lam
Experience Director, he/him
Ivan is a UI/UX designer committed to inspiring and enabling folx to fulfill their potential and live their best lives.
Come join our team!
We are a group of passionate folx who come together to help empower our communities and create pathways for queer and BIPOC creatives.
Currently looking for:
Social Media Coordinator to help run our social media accounts
Fundraising Chair to help us manage our finances and fundraising
Our Board

Ainsley Waller
Board Member, he/him, they/them
Ainsley is an inventive, award-winning, charmingly nerdy creative professional. He blends his love for pop culture and style with Fortune 500 brand experience and an all-consuming love of storytelling. Emphasis on writing and moving pictures.

Bo Ren
Board Member, she/her
Bo is a director of Early-Stage Startups at Silicon Valley Bank in New York City. In this role, she mentors and advises startups at the beginning stages of their journey, connecting them to the larger SVB ecosystem and accelerating them to Series A via company building and fundraising strategies. Before joining SVB, Bo invested in and led ecosystem strategy at Samsung Next. There, she specialized in AI/ML, data privacy and deep tech and helped entrepreneurs and innovators build, grow and scale their software and services ideas and businesses. Bo also spent a decade building engaging consumer products at such companies as Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr. She began her career in cleantech, scaling the companies Sunrun and Opower to IPO.

June Hongkiatkhajorn
Board Member, she/her
June is a product designer & art director with 10+ years of experience spread across the agency world, start-ups, e-commerce, and video streaming. Her work spans multiple disciplines inclusive of art direction, brand strategy, user experience, and user interface design. She is currently a lead product designer at MediaLab LA.

Sophia Arredondo
Board Member, she/her/ella
Sophia has served in education and education-adjacent spaces for over 15 years as a university lecturer, victim advocate, program manager, school district administrator, and national education organization director. She is deeply dedicated to bringing equity and justice to education, working in support of students, educators, families, and communities to address systemic inequities that prevent students from flourishing. More specifically, she is committed to identifying and developing strategies that meet the individual, intersectional, and distinctive needs of LGBTQ+ students and move them towards thriving socially, emotionally, and academically.
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