October 3rd, 2016

To whom it may concern,

MIT Innovators under 35 years old

It is my honor to provide a letter of recommendation for Alvaro Pereyra regarding the MIT
Innovators under 35 years award. This week is the 5th anniversary of meeting Alvaro. It was
during the Agile Open Lima III, and he was a speaker at the event. He came across as a very
knowledgeable person, sharing from real experience. At a time where the Agile concept was so
new in Lima that few people knew about it, he was already a pioneer. He proved the process
and tools, having a strong opinion of what worked and what didnt. I admired him.

In these five years, I have personally known Alvaro in different roles. He has been a teacher and
a mentor, teaching me Ruby. He has been a colleague in the Ruby Peru tech community,
sharing ideas and organizing events. He has been a steadfast supporter of Women in
Technology Peru, both as a speaker and a sponsor. And across these positions, his intensity
and ability to inspire and share with others has only kept increasing.

CodePicnic was born of this sentiment. It is a platform that allows developers to contribute and
collaborate on real live code from any browser.

Without it, you would have to spin up servers, install the necessary software, deploy the code,
open up a terminal machine and provide user accounts. All of this just to have the same level of
openness that CodePicnic provides its users. Nowadays, where apps are ever more connected,
it makes sense to have a sandbox where developers can play without committing to change.
CodePicnic allows SaaS solutions the flexibility of showcasing their awesomeness without the
time investment.

This is a huge deal for an online service, where you compete for the attention of developers; the
builders: Make their lives easy by having them save hours setting up and you just might have
gained that additional edge to win a customer.

I have no doubts that Alvaros mind is alight with an ever stream of hyperactive ideas begging to
be implemented. However, CodePicnic receives his full focus at the moment, and as such, his
total dedication. Weekends are just days where Alvaro is more creative, able to put more hours
into something he loves uninterrupted. Its not a coincidence that they have raised half a million
US dollars in 20 months, with operations from Boston, Lima and Chile.

My admiration has only grown from the day I met Alvaro, as he inspires me to be more like him:
deeply curious about technology and always playful.

Karen Da Cruz
Lima Operations Manager at Able