Hey, Baltimore.
A couple of notable folks’ deaths across the city has understandably left many of us rattled. If you’re hurting, we sympathize.
Looming perhaps largest over the tech ecosystem is that of Pava LaPere, the CEO and cofounder of EcoMap Technologies. Below you’ll see a piece from us that includes reflections on LaPere’s sudden and tragic passing from various people within this world whose lives she impacted. Although I’m a journalist, I’m also someone whose life has been irrevocably changed by being an insider-outsider within this community, so I hope you’ll allow me a moment to share my reflections on Pava.
I first met her soon after I started at Technical.ly, at last year’s Techstars Equitech Accelerator Demo Day. I approached LaPere, a participant in that accelerator cohort, in the hopes that I could get some kind of quote for an article. I was immediately bowled over by her warmth and apparent passion for the local ecosystem. In the time since, we connected on multiple occasions, and her importance to many people’s lives, from her colleagues to her Johns Hopkins community to those in networks that stemmed from the accelerators she did and helped create, was so apparent.
Despite my profession, it’s hard to come up with the words to describe the shock and devastation so many of us feel. I hope that the reflections in the article below provide you some solace, and thank those of you who sent in your own remembrances of Pava. I hope to see you soon at the vigil by Baltimore’s Washington Monument.
