Like last year, I had the incredible opportunity of being a fly on the wall as a house photographer at this year's PTTOW summit, once again taking place on the Southern California beachside Terranea Resort in Rancho Palos Verdes. PTTOW, which stands for 'Plan To Take On The World,' brings together some of the world's most influential marketing players from companies including Red Bull, Vice, Discovery Channel, ESPN, and GoPro with some of the planet's most visionary thinkers, futurists, and entrepreneurs, including inventor of wireless charging and CEO and founder of UBeam Meredith Perry, Singularity University and X-Prize’s Peter Diamandis, who, at this very event last year revealed plans to mine near-earth asteroids, Dr. Astro Teller from Google X who gave compelling evidence no why allowing, and paying, employees to make mistakes, serves the best interests of the company, Nely Galan, founder of the Adelante Movement, who gave her take on the rise of the country’s largest growing market, minority women, and the one and only Quincy Jones, a guest of honor who certainly knows a thing or two about helping minorities rise.
Having National Poetry Slam Champion IN-Q present the keynote with his spitfire anti-immoral-corporate rhymes to an audience full of corporate suits was a gutsy move and immediately set the tone for the conversations that would persist through the rest of the 2-day conference. Bringing together the young and brilliant minds that are envisioning and creating the future, with the minds that will bring those ideas to the masses, seemed like a no-brainer and I can only imagine what the partnerships that have been forged during these two days might bring about. Mix this with bonding experiences that included everything from golfing together to arts and crafts sessions to helicopter tours over Los Angeles, Navy SEAL training exercises, cigarette boat racing, and speed dating-style ‘Spark Sessions,’ throw in some entertainment provided by popular acts ranging from magician David Blaine to violin phenom Lindsey Stirling, soul vocalist extraordinaire Andra Day, young WARP-tour breakout act Echosmith, and the jazz, rhythm and blues of Jon Batiste, all set on a foundation of round the clock delicious catering and plenty of open bars, and you’ve got yourself a busy group of networking gotchas running around these Southern California bluffs.
Anyhow, here’s a gallery of some of my favorite images and moments from those whirlwind 48 hours (if you click on an image, a slideshow lightbox will pop up).
