At least, that's my hypothesis.
Nice to meet you, I'm Pava.
I'm an entrepreneur & technologist based in Baltimore, Maryland focused on building equitable and accessible ecosystems as a means to drive ground-up economic growth. If you can't tell, I think that entrepreneurs can save the world - but only if everyone who wants to be an entrepreneur has the ability to become one. All of my ventures focus on making it easier for more people to pursue their dreams and build things that matter.
We've designed a society that values money over humanity, the environment, and basic decency. We've accepted that big companies will sell our health and happiness to line their pockets. Our self-worth is based off Instagram feeds, and people have been pitted against each other by political tribalism in an effort to get us to forget about the real problem - our economic system has failed many Americans.
Capitalism is the best economic system for creating growth, but we've misapplied it. We assumed that optimizing for capital (that is, money) alone would develop a society that we find morally tolerable. It hasn't - the rates of poverty, the state of those in poverty, and the levels of economic inequality that we see today should be acceptable to no one.
For the past 50 years, we have pursued a specific type of economic growth - fostering the emergence of corporate giants, and assuming that making conditions favorable for corporatism would lead to favorable effects throughout all of society (trickle down). Not a ridiculous hypothesis, but it has quite thoroughly been disproven.
But what type of economic development strategy does work for reducing inequality and poverty?
Entrepreneurship.
Small businesses make up the very fabric of our economy - they are our largest employer. Nonprofits and grassroots orgs hold together our communities. And growth startups produce the technologies and products that further society. But if we want to see the economic benefits that fostering entrepreneurship can create, it requires us all: Consumers need to support local businesses, governments needs to create favorable policies, and we need to get rid of the class, racial, and gender inequalities that have hindered entrepreneurship from the start.
Some people have hobbies, I build things. Ordered by founding date, not importance. Current sole focus is EcoMap Technologies.
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I spend 80% of my waking time working, and 20% of it thinking and writing. Every few weeks, I write a cool essay, as well as share some tips & tools for anyone interested in Economic Development Through Entrepreneurship.
The personal site of Pava Marie LaPere, who believes in Economic Development through Entrepreneurship, and has pretty much dedicated her life to figuring out how to make that work.
