PAST Festivals

A record crowd assembled last February in Rio de Janeiro. We laughed, we cried, we danced, all 200+ plus of us on those famous beaches joining together with our new Brazilian family members. We learned so so much more about Brazilian history, music, leadership and the possibilities for future collaboration across the Americas.

The Mayoral Summit – which featured 50 mayors from the USA and Brazil – was a welcome addition to the Festival’s programming, as those mayors not have a much larger professional learning community on which to lean upon. Moreover, the 2nd annual FOTD/Black Ambition Pitch Competition changed the lives of several amazing women entrepreneurs that are now part of the FOTD Vendor Network curated by Casa Innovation.

The second FOTD in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, leveraged lessons learned from the first year to curate an unparalleled four day event from March 2 – 5th, 2023 where 200+ leaders gathered at the Cartagena Centro Convenciones and took over the ancient city to celebrate, connect and collaborate.

The event featured a “second line” parade through the streets of Getsamni, an after party at the historic Café Havana, and a pilgrimage to Palenque San Basilio, the first free Black village in the Americas (circa 1603 A.D.). The event also featured a pitch competition for female Afro-Colombian entrepreneurs which was organized by Casa Innovation.

In less than one week, more than 50 women submitted pitch videos and financial reports and ten semi-finalists were selected. Five finalists emerged and were featured on a FOTD panel were honored and awarded differing parts of a twenty-three thousand dollar cash prize at the closing reception.

Our beginnings start with the first festival taking place in San Juan, Puerto Rico at the idyllic Hilton Grand Resort on February 21-24th, 2022. We kicked off our convening with more than 150 leaders from the USA and Puerto Rico, while enjoying four days of idea exchange and collaboration.