Hopkins to dedicate entrepreneurship center on Saturday
The Johns Hopkins University is hosting a dedication Saturday of a center named in honor of Pava LaPere, the Hopkins alum and tech CEO who was killed in Baltimore last fall.
The ceremony is being held in Remington and will include remarks from Hopkins President Ronald J. Daniels, Dean of the Carey Business School Alexander Triantis, alumni, partners of the center and LaPere’s family.
“As a student and then as a young alum, Pava was continuously pushing Johns Hopkins to do more to nurture entrepreneurs,” Christy Wyskiel, the executive director of Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures and senior adviser to the president of Johns Hopkins University for innovation and entrepreneurship, said in a statement.
The Pava Marie LaPere Center for Entrepreneurship will absorb what was formerly FastForward U, a hub for student entrepreneurship launched with Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures — and one that LaPere played a major role in getting off the ground in 2018.
But the Pava Center “is not just a rebrand of FastForward U,” a Hopkins spokesperson told The Baltimore Sun via email. “The Pava Center is being established to build on current student programming and will have a broader scope.”
The center will house the Social Innovation Lab, open to Baltimore-area entrepreneurs outside of the Hopkins community, and the university is aiming to also eventually support young alumni entrepreneurs.
LaPere’s parents, Frank and Caroline LaPere, said their daughter loved Hopkins and that the newly named center means her legacy of supporting entrepreneurs “will live on and grow in the years to come.”
“We see great things that will come from this,” her
parents wrote in an email to The Sun. “Entrepreneurship is powerful. Everything starts with a great idea. The ideas born here at The Pava Marie LaPere Center for Entrepreneurship will impact communities across the country in the years to come.”
They expressed gratitude that the Pava LaPere Legacy of Innovation Act, which will create a grant program in her name for certain tech startups, passed the General Assembly this week. They also said a fellowship
program named after their daughter will begin this weekend.
At Hopkins, the new entrepreneurship center “empowers and equips Johns Hopkins students, alumni, and community changemakers to build impactful, sustainable ventures,” according to its website. “Grounded in Baltimore, with an eye toward the world, the Center convenes diverse stakeholders and resources to create a dynamic innovation ecosystem.”
The center has multiple accelerator programs for entrepreneurs and startups, and distributes grant and prize money up to as much as $100,000.
In December, Daniels announced the university would commit $2 million to the new center, with the aim of reaching a $7.5 million endowment.
In a letter appearing in the Spring 2024 issue of Johns Hopkins Magazine, Daniels wrote that “Pava believed in the magic of our city’s entrepreneurial spirit — the people, the creativity, the untapped possibilities. She also challenged all of us across Hopkins to think critically and intentionally about our responsibilities to our neighbors and the communities of which we are so deeply a part.”
LaPere graduated in 2019 from Hopkins, where she helped start TCO Labs, an entrepreneurship organization. She co-created two of the school’s accelerator programs, according to the center’s website, and co-founded EcoMap Technologies, where she served as CEO.
In September, LaPere was found dead at her Mount Vernon apartment building. The 26-year-old’s death was ruled a homicide, and a trial for the man accused of killing her is expected to begin in late August.
“Pava’s death was a moment of reflection for us — I think many of us thought that perhaps we were approaching our work too incrementally, not thinking as big as Pava was,” Wyskiel said. “The renaming signifies an attempt to think bigger, more expansively not just about students while on campus, but also how our alumni and community entrepreneurs can be empowered.”
LaPere, Wyskiel added, was a champion of Baltimore.