The 2024 iteration of Summit at Sea (April 4-7) concluded yesterday off the coast of Miami, bringing participants on a journey through community and connection. For the four-day odyssey, over 2,000 visionaries from an array of professional corners—from fitness and philanthropy to medicine and media—joined to exchange ideas and optimize their purposes, centered around a collection of workshops.
On board its partner’s boat, Richard Branson’s Virgin Voyages, those who joined also embraced unparalleled inspiration and the opportunity to connect with change-makers and their companies, including Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, Henk Rogers, Diplo, Robert Thurman, Rich Medina, Erik Anderson, Dr. Pippa Malmgren, Steven Kotler, Leo Villareal, Mason Hereford, Alexis Rockman, Jennifer Morris, and Stacy Letrice, among others.
Summit at Sea 2023, courtesy of Summit at Sea.
In celebration of the 2024 chapter, Jody Levy, the CEO and Global Director of Summit at Sea, shared with Whitewall how this year’s edition emphasizes the organization’s overall mission and what its expansion plans—including Summit Baja and its latest membership platform—entail.
Jody Levy, courtesy of Summit at Sea.
Summit at Sea 2024
WHITEWALL: This year’s Summit at Sea program is filled with talks and activations with change-makers—from artists and CEOs to environmentalists and designers. What do these speakers say about Summit’s overall messaging?
JODY LEVY: Our aim is to always present an unexpected blend of brilliant thinkers, thought leaders, innovators, and artists pushing boundaries. This is all in a focused effort to inspire new ways of thinking, fresh vantage points, and to fulfill our ongoing commitment to our communities’ curiosity and expansion. We believe that by bringing together an eclectic mix of the greatest visionaries, industry legends, movement makers, scientists, and artists of our time, we can work to solve our collective challenges.
Summit at Sea 2023, courtesy of Summit at Sea.
WW: What about the group of people who set sail as guests?
JL: The people who are part of Summit and attend the flagship events are the high-octane doers. The people who love making something out of nothing, those who share the rebel spirit, and hear a call to action and act. They support one another, they collaborate, they invest in each other, they share an insatiable curiosity and a love for making the things around us better than they were before they touched it.
Collaboration and Making Change
WW: Summit is “a brand and series of companies committed to supporting the global maker economy.” How would you describe its mission today?
JL: Our mission is to bring together global entrepreneurs and change-makers to cross-pollinate and collaborate.
Summit at Sea 2023, courtesy of Summit at Sea.
WW: How does its mission evolve to meet culture and society’s changes?
JL:How we gather changes, alongside our relationship to how we prioritize and spend time, so how we host, curate, and architect our gathering changes to meet our demands. But the foundation of Summit, as the center point where the doers find each other, support each other, and grow together remains.
Summit’s Partnership with Richard Branson
WW: The journey is also a continuation of its partnership with Richard Branson’s Virgin Voyages. Why is that a powerful partnership for Summit’s programming?
JL: Richard Branson and Virgin as a brand embody the spirit that many of our members connect to, the desire to create out of nothing, the desire to reinvent industries that are ripe for disruption, the balance of building story and mission and meaning. Summit’s partnership with Virgin Voyages is also very aligned in our attention to detail, focus on environmental responsibility, our ethos of how both companies operate, treat their teams, and embrace collaboration which allows us to co-create a very special experience for our community.
Summit at Sea 2023, courtesy of Summit at Sea.
How Summit Sparks Inspiration
WW: What do you hope those who participate leave the summit feeling? Inspired to do?
JL:We hope to invigorate the spark in our people that drive them to build new things, to take the time to invest in learning about new endeavors, to support one another, to take the calls to action and act, to share the stories, get involved and help the ripples of positive change extend as far as possible. This is a common desire and thread in the Summit community. And this has been a proven functional benefit of Summit gatherings for 16 years. This is why people from all corners of the planet find a way to join our events because the impact to them personally, professionally, and to the wider community is so vast and bright.
Summit at Sea 2023, courtesy of Summit at Sea.
WW: What are you personally looking forward to experiencing on this upcoming excursion?
JL: As the director of the entire experience, I am excited for so many sessions, interactive workshops, and performances! A few that are not to be missed are a deep dive with Bob Thurman who will be sharing Tibet’s ancient wisdom for our turbulent world, this is such a gift for our community to have the chance to interact with such an important thought leader and change maker. I am so excited to see John Varvatos and Steven Kotler who are co-creating a talk titled How The Kids Nobody Wanted Created The World We’re All Living In—a deep dive on how Punk shaped the entrepreneurial revolution! We are hosting Henk Rogers to share the adventure of Tetris and unified game theory. I am so thrilled to host a rare discussion with Diplo and Just Blaze who are doing a talk with Fab 5 Freddy on the future of music and culture.
I am hoping I can steal an hour to participate in the interactive writing workshop with Grammy-winning Spoken Word Poet J. Ivy. We are hosting very special performances by East Forest. Natasha Diggs and her new project Soul In The Horn, D-Nice, Moodymann, Mandrake, etc. My list goes on and on and on. There are so many artists and brilliant speakers, teachers, and thought leaders joining us for this special sailing.
Summit at Sea 2023, courtesy of Summit at Sea.
Summit Membership & Summit Baja
WW: What are you working on next in 2024?
JL: In our ever-expanding quest to offer new and unique ways to unite and nourish our dynamic community, for the first time in 16 years, we launched Summit Membership. This is our global platform active 365 days a year. Our mission is to nurture our connections, create spaces for meaningful relationships, inspire innovation, and invoke collaboration. Summit Membership is our ecosystem platform for global access to events and experiences with Summit’s makers, doers, thinkers, and creators worldwide. We like to say it is our house, without walls.
In addition to our new Membership platform, On April 5 out at Sea, we announced the launch of a new Summit event and campus—Summit Baja. We will be hosting this new Flagship in November 2024. This event will be smaller, more intimate, and on a campus new to the Summit community in Baja, Mexico with a focus on innovation, professional optimization, and the future of business as we know it.
Our ever-growing community members apply to join Summit, our flagship events and membership platform. Apply to join at summit.co.
