For the second consecutive year, BRIC media became home to Progress Playbook’s Renaissance Summit, bringing together creators and innovators in the spirit of community-building and entrepreneurship. Geared toward anyone seeking an entrepreneurial journey, Progress Playbook provides multiple pathways to achieve success through mentorship, resources, and connecting people and communities.
This year, the one-day event expected an increase in attendees, 30% of whom were estimated to be from NYCHA housing. Progress Playbook works alongside the RIIS Program, which provides programming in NYCHA neighborhoods. Lloyd Cambridge, CEO and founder of Progress Playbook, said it is important to include this usually disregarded population in the discussion of and position to grow economically.
As a native of Brownsville, Brooklyn, where the majority of his family resided in NYCHA housing, Cambridge said, “It was important for me to empower, to equip folks in those neighborhoods. We have a lot of success stories from people who were born and raised in NYCHA that now have successful businesses as a way to have economic mobility.”
Community and connection were recurring themes as host Kamla Karina Millwood, founder of Palatial Publishing, encouraged guests to connect with at least 20 people throughout the event, saying, “Back in the day, it was cute to be nice and shy; not anymore.”
In addition to two panel discussions covering community- building and ownership, the Renaissance Summit gave recognition to the hard work of its 2024/2025 cohort participants with award plaques, and provided a platform for four of the 14 participants from the Blueprint Project: Activate Spring 2025 cohort to pitch their businesses to the entire summit.
As part of her pitch, returning Renaissance 2024 participant Andrea Davis-Woods of Juiced It!, a cold-pressed natural juice business, sought a mentor to help in achieving her additional goals. She found it in Millwood, who publicly offered to fulfill that need.
Zaki Smith, founder of Young Barbers Initiative, boasted of training 120 high school students in the art of barbering from 2024 to 2025. He is currently looking to expand his services to multiple schools in the Department of Education (DOE) to provide hands-on vocational skills, life skills, and immediate entrepreneurial potential for students. He heard about Progress Playbook through a friend and, at the time, was leading a campaign for the Clean Slate Act, legislation that seals criminal records to allow formerly incarcerated New Yorkers the chance for a fresh start.
Formerly incarcerated himself, Smith realized that every time he went back into the prison system, he ended up working in the barbershop. One day he asked himself, “Why am I here again? I actually have a skill here.” Smith gets emotional when he reminisces about his lived experiences that prompted the creation and development of his barbering program.
As a DOE educator, he prefers to work with young people and partially considers his program a preventive measure in making sure they stay on the right path. “My goal is that even if a young person walks out of high school and doesn’t become a barber, they have that in the back of their mind: ‘Hey, I actually know how to cut hair. I have that skill.’”
Smith’s participation in Progress Playbook’s programming has been integral to his success. He credits the program with providing access to resources, experts, and coaches; support in creating infrastructure and systems; and money management education.
The Blueprint Project: Clarify Winter 2025 Cohort was most impressive — the entire nine-person group consisted of only women with businesses that ranged from content creation to life coaching. Elizabeth Elohim’s company, Melabomb, which specializes in colored lashes, was birthed out of a unique genetic mutation that causes some of her lashes to grow in gray. She said Progress Playbook “was a great motivator for me at a time that I was stuck, but still really passionate about my business. The program does what it says it does: Clarify and narrow in on what you want to do.”
The success of Progress Playbook hinges on contracts through government agencies, nonprofits, and the many relationships Cambridge has cultivated throughout his years in business solutions. Janice Fredericks of East Elmhurst, Queens, founder of the Retail Genius, said she became acquainted with Cambridge long before the creation of Progress Playbook through his work at NYC Business Solutions. Once he started Progress Playbook, she said, “he was still reaching out and consulting with me.”
Fredericks became the first Black woman to own a beauty supply store in New York City. After eight years of running her business, she closed its doors to support other Black and Brown people in opening beauty supply stores across the United States and in parts of the Caribbean. She felt the importance of being a pioneer and creating a safe space where Black women could come to shop and share their hair experiences.
She described the importance of Progress Playbook and the Renaissance Summit as a “movement”: “It’s a huge, impactful movement. We’re still on this journey as Black entrepreneurs of trying to get ownership and trying to get ahead.” She praised Cambridge for being a game-changer by providing a platform for bold leaders and change-makers to emerge confidently and be supported by other Black entrepreneurs. “It’s absolutely wonderful,” she said.
City Councilmember Rita Joseph of District 40 and Ranti Ogunleye, director at the NYC Office of Neighborhood Safety, were also in attendance. The latter assists in the funding of Progress Playbook by providing their largest contracts. Cambridge said of that partnership that “the beauty of working with that organization is that they want to work with Black and Brown organizations that are from the neighborhood, that understand the neighborhood, that understand the people, and that can support them to create these innovative solutions.”
Cambridge’s hope for the future is to assist in building for-profit businesses that can fund upcoming social endeavors so Progress Playbook and its participants are less reliant on government funding. Cambridge also looks forward to seeing participants in his programs and the communities they live in flourish in healthy and vibrant neighborhoods with the infrastructure and resources to support them. “I see Progress Playbook helping to create an ecosystem to achieve that vision.”