Amar Pai, son of a long-time Las Vegas resident, Punda and Padmini Pai, died suddenly at home in San Francisco. Born on Nov. 29, 1976, in Garden City, Kansas, Amar moved with his family to Las Vegas in 1987.

A brilliant engineer, Amar was remarkable in the breadth of his interests. A voracious and eclectic reader, a creative writer with a distinctive voice, a climber and walker, a sidewalk artist, and a music aficionado, Amar embraced with open arms everything life has to offer. He lived in the moment and brought joy and positivity to everything he did. He was kind, gentle, generous, open, quirky, adventurous, and fun. His #heartsprojectsf sidewalk chalk project brought joy to many communities. After his death, displaying the passion and energy he inspired in them, his friends nationwide created chalk artwork in his honor. 

He graduated in 1999 from Rice University in Houston with a B.A. in computer science and cognitive science. After a brief stint in London, he went on to a stellar career in San Francisco solving complex problems at Electronic Arts, YouTube, Google, Goodreads, Lyft, and finally as a senior staff engineer at Slack, where he found the challenge and satisfaction he sought as a technical leader and mentor. Above all, he was a devoted and exceptional parent. His young daughters, Isabella and Asha, also of San Francisco, were his universe. He is also survived by his parents, Padmini and Punda Pai, of Las Vegas; brother, Ajeet (Sarah) and their children Amitha and Avinash, of Austin, Texas; and his former wife, Aliza Aber of San Francisco. A celebration of Amar’s life will be held in San Francisco at a later date. Should you wish, please donate to the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library.

As reported in the Las Vegas Review Journal