Lauren Prager believes in the power of community. Her entire life - both personal and professional - has been dedicated to learning people’s stories, finding ways to share them to build meaningful, intentional communities and connections.

Lauren’s career started in Washington DC where she was a lobbyist, educator and political organizer. For more than 10 years, Lauren worked on domestic and foreign policy issues building bipartisan support and empowering people to get engaged and impact their community. She helped to launch several national community engagement initiatives and organized national and international educational programs. During her career she achieved record levels in fundraising, membership growth and retention, and community involvement.

After moving to Florida, Lauren took time with her family before seizing the opportunity to volunteer with Synapse, a non-profit that connects Florida’s innovation talent. Her 5 hour per week volunteer role quickly became a full time passion, after she successfully curated the content and programming for the inaugural Synapse Summit in 2018. That volunteer experience launched her into a new career path to connect, discover and engage with Florida innovators.

Lauren saw how dynamic and exciting the innovation community is in Florida, and decided to dedicate her next professional chapter to helping this community excel. Synapse has now built a statewide movement of diverse innovation stakeholders working together to accelerate the narrative that innovation lives here.

Now as Synapse’s Chief Strategy Officer, Lauren gets to engage with Florida’s most innovative companies from startup to growth stage and enterprise level, education and government leaders, investors and ecosystem leaders, to create opportunities for meaningful connections. She spearheads strategic partnerships and messaging for the organization through events and creative initiatives she and the team dream up. Lauren is the staff liaison to the Inclusion Lives Here Committee on the Synapse Impact Board, and earned a certificate in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the Workplace through the USF Muma College of Business.

Lauren is involved with several community initiatives in her adopted hometown of Tampa, but will always be a proud Philadelphian. She is a certified pilates instructor and an avid music lover and baker (her speciality is challah!). Her favorite activity is hanging out with her husband and daughters.