Featured Programs
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Blaze Awards
Brings together a variety of student and alumni award opportunities into a single initiative.
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Ignite Fund
Student funding offered monthly that ranges from $100-$1,000.
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President’s Venture Fellowship
Funding for new alumni as they pursue a business venture in Baltimore full-time after graduation.
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Summer Incubator
A six-week, co-working experience for student ventures ready to take a “deep dive” into building their startups.
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Empowering Student, Alumni, and Community Ventures
Featured Ventures
Grounded in Baltimore, with an eye toward the world, the Pava Center convenes diverse stakeholders and resources. We support founders creating value and opportunity; anyone from the curious to the committed is encouraged to plug in and access funding, support, and more.
view all venturesEmpowering Student, Alumni, and Community Ventures
Dayli is an AI-powered "social coordinator" and application designed to help friends make real-life plans.
- Consumer App
Dayli
Dayli is an AI-powered “social coordinator” and application designed to help friends and close connections coordinate schedules and make real-life plans, aiming to combat Gen Z loneliness.
ArthurThe Pava Center has been ultra supportive of our journey, They have been with us from day one, and Fuel Is now helping us think bigger, We can’t wait to see how we can end the cohort strong.
A production company creating quality content while developing Baltimore film talent.
- Social Enterprise
Create and Serve Media Group
A storytelling production company that delivers high-quality content while cultivating Baltimore’s existing pool of film and media professionals through a tiered, adult-focused, workforce development model entitled Crew Call. A storytelling production company that delivers high-quality content while cultivating Baltimore’s existing pool of film and media professionals through a tiered, adult-focused, workforce development model entitled Crew Call.
AlexandraThe top thing I got from the SIL experience was understanding the importance of metrics but also leaning into who you are as a founder.
Athletes Intell is a digital platform that helps athletic departments extend mental performance training to more student-athletes.
- Medical Technology
Athletes Intell
Athletes Intell is a digital platform that helps athletic departments extend mental performance training to more student-athletes.
MattBeing back at Hopkins has been an amazing experience. It has given me the chance to reconnect with the Hopkins community and meet incredible alumni who are doing great things in their respective fields. I have learned so much through this accelerator, not only from the mentors and ad”Being back at Hopkins has been an amazing experience. It has given me the chance to reconnect with the Hopkins community and meet incredible alumni who are doing great things in their respective fields. I have learned so much through this accelerator, not only from the mentors and advisers, but also from being part of a cohort of founders building innovative companies. I feel very lucky to be part of it. It has helped me grow my venture, but it has also helped me grow as a person.”visers, but also from being part of a cohort of founders building innovative companies. I feel very lucky to be part of it. It has helped me grow my venture, but it has also helped me grow as a person.
Veina Inc. is a medical device company eliminating the leading cause of diagnostic lab errors.
- Medical Technology
Veina Inc.
Veina Inc. is a medical device company eliminating the leading cause of diagnostic lab errors and improving the quality of blood samples collected in hospitals so that clinicians have reliable lab results and patients receive better care.
NatashaVeina has participated in Pava Center accelerators: Spark, Summer Incubator, and Fuel. Each one has taught us something new and helped us connect more intimately with the Hopkins entrepreneurial ecosystem. What excites us most is not just the resources but how interconnected they are, making it possible to move from idea to impact within one ecosystem.
Hip-hop-based education model integrating mindset, SEL, and academic growth.
- Social Enterprise
Cypher
A 3-in-1 model for holistic, culturally responsive instruction that integrates mindset development, social-emotional learning, and content mastery through the four pillars of hip-hop.
EneahIn my first year of teaching, I found that engagement was one of the challenges connected to student performance. I started listening to students to figure out how I could design something they would actually want to do.
iksa is an AI-native operating system for longevity medicine.
- Medical Technology
- SAAS/Data Technology
iksa
Twelve years ago, Shaurya Verma (S.V.) and Anand Ahuja (A.A.) became best friends at Hopkins — both already running healthcare nonprofits as undergraduates. A decade of deliberately complementary careers later, they have reunited to co-found iksa — the AI-native operating system for longevity medicine. Coordinated AI for the physician, the nurse, and the patient, all working from the same live picture of the protocol. iksa is in production with a leading stem-cell + longevity provider in Southeast Asia.
ShauryaComing back a decade later to build at the institution where our friendship began is a full-circle moment. We moved our headquarters to Baltimore specifically for Hopkins — a five-to-ten year commitment. We have led seminars at the Bloomberg School of Public Health and within the Pava cohort. Roots, not resources.
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The Pava Center offers a range of funding opportunities, from seed grants to scaling support. Whether you're just getting started or ready to grow, we’ll help you take the next step with confidence.
Funding & Resources
Featured Articles
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Math Your Mind: Helping Students Think Like Mathematicians
A math education company working to shift student identity, not just student performance. Years of declining math performance, widened by pandemic learning loss, have left students underprepared. Now AI is forcing a reckoning of how deeply students actually understand the subject. Dr. Christina Eubanks-Turner (C.T.), a math professor at Loyola Marymount University, and Dr. Earl Turner III (E.T.), a behavioral scientist and former Teach for America educator, founded Math Your Mind Institute to address the root cause: students who never learn to see themselves as math people.
LUMIQO: Fixing the Safety Blind Spot in Oncology Clinical Trials
Adverse events in oncology trials are routinely missed. LUMIQO is building the AI to surface them automatically, bringing safer therapies to patients faster.
Every year, adverse events in oncology clinical trials go undetected: not because researchers aren’t trying, but because the tools don’t exist to catch them. Study coordinators and physicians are logging data manually, on paper. The result is longer timelines, limited treatment options, and patients waiting for therapies that take an average of twelve years to reach them. Lumiqo is building the AI platform to fix that. We spoke with founder Maggie Manzano (M.M.).
Built at Johns Hopkins: Spring 2026 Pava Center Accelerator Winners Announced
This spring, the Pava Marie LaPere Center for Entrepreneurship concluded another semester of accelerator programming spanning healthcare, AI, financial technology, consumer products, accessibility, and deep tech. Ventures from the Kindling, Spark, and Fuel programs — each supporting founders at a different stage of development — presented before mentors, judges, and members of the Johns Hopkins innovation community.