Stay connected with Boston's entrepreneur, business, and innovation community! This event is hosted in partnership with Innovation Studio.
02/13/2023
8:30am - 10:30am
Roxbury Innovation Center
This event will explore why in-game advertising is becoming the next big advertising channel and how companies can tap into the gaming ad space.
02/28/2023
5:30pm - 7:30pm
Mediahub
Join City Awake for our first social experience event of 2023!
02/27/2023
4:45pm - 8:00pm
Cambridge School of Culinary Arts
Our Boston’s Future Leaders (BFL) program provides emerging leaders with a socially conscious and civically engaged leadership toolkit, as well as the opportunity to apply their knowledge through experiential assignments.
Join our Transformational DEI Certificate! Our comprehensive learning & development offerings are designed to connect and grow strong leaders who lead both inside and out of the office.
Our Women’s Leadership Program enables you to take your leadership to the next level by arming you with the most in-demand leadership toolkit.
Our Economic Inclusion Committee provides strategic support around research, policies, and programs that are focused on building equal opportunity.
We are developing an ecosystem of corporations and partners with the influence and buying power to transform economic inclusion for minority business enterprises (MBEs).
The Fierce Urgency of Now Festival brings Boston’s diverse young professionals together with business leaders, organizations and their peers to build connection, advance careers and ignite positive change.
09/12/2023 -
09/15/2023
Greater Boston
City Awake empowers young professionals in a variety of ways that encourages these rising leaders to stay invested in the region’s future success.
BIMA (the Boston Interactive Media Association) serves a vibrant community of like-minded professionals from agencies, brands, publishers, and ad-tech companies with business interests in the New England market.
For more than 25 years, the Chamber’s Women’s Network has connected female professionals of all background and career levels. Today, our Women’s Network is the largest in New England, strengthening the professional networks of women each year.
Through MITX (the Massachusetts Innovation and Technology Exchange), we’re building valuable connections between the people and ideas behind technology and its impact on the future of customer experiences, all to create a community that’s finding tomorrow’s solutions together.
We support small business through public policy initiatives, events designed to connect small businesses in Greater Boston to their peers and established business leaders, professional development offerings, and free small business advising.
Explore our mission and values to better understand how we are leading the business community forward.
Our member directory is your resource to discover, connect, and engage with Boston’s businesses from every industry and sector.
After attending Spelman College in Atlanta, GA, I moved to the Boston area in 2004 to attend Harvard Graduate School of Education. Coming from an Historically Black College & University (HBCU), the first time I stepped foot on Harvard’s campus I did NOT want to attend. From what I could see, there were barely any black people or people of color there (or, from what I assumed, in the rest of Boston & Cambridge). My mother swiftly reminded me that I was privileged to be accepted into Harvard (and she had already told all of her friends) so there was no way that I wasn’t attending.
Like many professionals of color I’ve met that moved here begrudgingly for a great job or educational opportunities, I spent my first few years in Boston complaining about how hard it is to live here. I didn’t know anyone or have a network, so I had to figure out how to build one. Over time, I started and joined organizations, became civically engaged, and hosted events that connected me to lots of different worlds, including education, politics, arts, community organizing, and the business community.
It took work, and it wasn’t easy. And it’s not just hard for transplants like myself: I also hear from native Bostonians that they don’t have spaces to connect with others across neighborhoods, sectors, and backgrounds. They, too, are looking for community and experiences that help them enjoy Boston. It shouldn’t be this hard for people of color to see themselves and find community here in Boston.
So when I started in my role at the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, I worked together with the team to help change that dynamic and lead in addressing the persistent perceptions and realities about what it’s like to be a person of color in Boston.
That’s what the Fierce Urgency of Now Festival is all about! Through F.U.N., City Awake and the Chamber are bringing together individuals across all communities and backgrounds to highlight the moral, civic, and business reasons for why we should all be working together to make sure that young professionals of color experience Boston as somewhere where they belong, feel supported, and want to live, work, and play.
This is how F.U.N. got its roots – it started as an idea for a few days with a handful of events hosted by Chamber members and advocacy groups with the hope of scaling up in years to come. But when we put out the RFP for event hosts, the response was unbelievable, and we ended up with 40+ events and 2,000 attendees in year one. Knowing that we have an engaged community of hosts, and that the demand for these events and conversations is high, the sky is the limit in year two and beyond.
This year, we have panels focused on the lack of diversity in the creative economy, a fireside chat with Tristan Walker of Bevel, a Red Sox game, brunches, parties on the Greenway, fitness classes, an LGBTQ Ball, and more. Come join us as we discuss, dance, eat, and learn how we all can play a role in creating a Boston that is welcoming for all.
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