2024 Salute to Hollywood & Excellence Awards Gala
Time: 5:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Dress: Semi-formal / Cocktail
Venue:
Historic Smashbox Studios,
8549 Higuera St.
Culver City, CA 90232
Parking:
Complimentary
8511 Warner Dr.
Culver City, CA
The Evening:
5:00-6:15: Blue Carpet Arrivals/Cocktail Reception
6:15-9:15: Dinner & Awards Program
9:15-10:00: Dancing
Must be on the guest list or show ticket purchased to park AND enter the event.
Please Save These Dates:
CaribbeanLens Film Festival ….Where Hollywood Celebrates the Caribbean
Wednesday, June 24, 2026 – Friday, June 26, 2026
Los Angeles, California
2026 Caribbean Heritage Salute to Hollywood & Excellence Awards Gala
Saturday, June 27, 2026
Los Angeles, California
2026 Confirmed Honorees
- Aisha Bowe
- Aerospace Engineer, Entrepreneur, STEM Advocate, Blue Origin Citizen Astronaut
- Shirley Chisholm Legacy Award
Aisha Bowe
Engineer | Entrepreneur |STEM Advocate | Citizen Astronaut
Aisha Bowe is a former NASA rocket scientist, award-winning founder, and citizen astronaut who is redefining what it means to lead in science, education, and innovation.
In 2025, she flew aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket as part of a historic all-female crew, conducting NASA-backed research and flight-qualified experiments in microgravity while carrying the Apollo 12 mission flag flown by astronaut Pete Conrad, a tribute to the legacy she now extends. Born in America to a Bahamian family, Aisha carries her Caribbean roots as a source of deep pride — becoming the first person of Bahamian heritage to travel to space, a milestone she honored mid-flight by holding up a Bahamian flag patch in tribute to her heritage and her 92-year-old grandfather who watched from the ground below.
A serial founder who has built multiple successful companies at the intersection of technology and impact, Aisha is the founder of STEMBoard, an Inc. 5000-ranked tech company and LINGO, an edtech platform on a mission to equip one million students with hands-on STEM skills. LINGO delivers lessons based on the real-world that are accessible, inclusive, and future-ready. Aisha is also among the fewer than 2% of women founders to raise over $2 million in venture capital.
From discovering her love of math in community college to conducting NASA-backed research in microgravity, Aisha’s story has inspired millions. She’s been featured in ABC News, Entrepreneur, Essence, Elle, People, The Kelly Clarkson Show, and CBS Mornings. Additionally, Aisha is the subject of the documentary In Her Element, streaming on Amazon Prime, Google Play, and Apple TV and The Human Component by BBC Storyworks.
As a U.S. State Department Global Speaker, Aisha has represented the United States in more than a dozen countries, championing access to STEM, entrepreneurship, and space exploration. She holds degrees in Aerospace Engineering and Space Systems Engineering from the University of Michigan, and has earned honors including NASA’s Engineering Honor Award, Black Enterprise’s Luminary Award, and STEM for Her Woman of the Year.
Aisha is living proof that the word impossible is merely a suggestion. She inspires the next generation of innovators and explorers, thinkers and creators, while serving as a testament to dreaming big, no matter what.
- Marsha Cooke
- Vice President & Executive Producer
- ESPN Films & 30 for 30 Corporate Award
Marsha Cooke
Vice President & Executive Producer, ESPN Films & 30 for 30, Corporate AwardMarsha Cooke currently serves as vice president & executive producer for ESPN Originals and 30 for 30, responsible for overseeing development, production, distribution, branding and strategy.
Cooke joined ESPN from VICE Media Group, where she served as senior vice president of global news and special projects. In her role at VICE, Cooke developed and produced special news and entertainment projects across VMG digital and broadcast platforms, leading the youth media company in pushing the limits of broadcast news formats and playing a key role in integrating VICE’s forward-thinking values with its award-winning content.
Cooke was instrumental in leading VICE News’ first-ever live coverage of the 2020 Iowa Brown and Black Forum, the nation’s oldest and only non-partisan presidential forum dedicated exclusively to addressing issues facing communities of color. With unprecedented candidate attendance and a groundbreaking, engaging format, the program won a national news Emmy. Cooke also previously led IMPACT at VICE, where she directed social good and community engagement in order to build and strengthen VICE’s culture, partnerships, and social responsibility initiatives, with a focus on ensuring the company’s work would affect long standing change in local and global communities.
Prior to VICE, Cooke spent 24 years at CBS. She was the first Black Asia Bureau Chief, responsible for coverage across the continent, producing stories for various CBS News shows and she served as VP of news services, in charge of the Newspath newsgathering group serving 200 CBS affiliates nationwide and broadcasters around the world. Before that, Cooke was executive editor of content at CBSN, the 24-hour digital streaming news network, where she led the unit’s push into original documentaries and helped guide breaking news coverage, and also was a senior broadcast producer for “CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley.”
During her time at CBS, Cooke was the recipient of a News & Documentary Emmy Award and a Gracie Award. She is a graduate of Temple University, where she is also a recipient of the Lew Klein Media Award, an inductee of the Alumni Hall of Fame and the university’s Gallery of Success. She was featured in O Magazine in 2019. She is on the board of Solutions Journalism, Capital B, The City, an online, nonprofit newsroom, the Alliance of Women in Media and is a founding member of The Meteor.
Cooke lives in New York City where she is a voracious reader, ridiculous foodie, long-suffering NY sports fan and a proud first generation Jamaican-American.
More to be added
2024 Honorees & Tributes
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Hulu’s Black Cake Series Tribute
Marissa Jo Cerar
Special Recognition for “Black Cake” SeriesMarissa Jo Cerar began her career working as a writer and producer on hit series such as Netflix’s 13 REASONS WHY, Freeform’s THE FOSTERS, FOX’s SHOTS FIRED, and Hulu’s THE HANDMAID’S TALE, for which she shares nominations for both the Emmys and Writers Guild Awards for Outstanding Drama Series for season three.
She is a NAACP Image Award and Humanitas Prize winning writer-producer with a passion for socially conscious storytelling. She has spent her career focusing her creative efforts on projects that explore the intersectionality of the human experience through character-driven and female forward stories, such as her series WOMEN OF THE MOVEMENT which aired on ABC. In addition to her WOTM script winning the NAACP Image Award and the Humanitas Prize, the series has been honored as the Best Limited Series by the African American Film Critics Association and The Gracie Awards.
Marissa Jo’s new series, BLACK CAKE premiered on November 1, 2023, and is currently streaming on Hulu. The series was honored with the Critics’ Choice Association Seal of Female Empowerment in Entertainment (SOFEE) and was recently nominated for GLAAD Media Awards’ Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series category. The NAACP Image Awards nominated BLACK CAKE for the Outstanding Drama Series category, as well as Marissa Jo’s writing for the Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series category. She served as Creator, Showrunner and Executive Producer, along with Kapital Entertainment and Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Films.
Paramount’s Bob Marley: One Love Special Tribute
- Recognition for Cinematic Excellence
Bob Marley: One Love
Recognition for Cinematic Excellence
“Bob Marley: One Love” movie celebrates the life and music of the reggae legend who inspired generations through his message of love, peace, and unity. A message that could not be timelier given today’s unforgiving climate.
The movie, which masterfully chronicles the icon’s rise to fame in the mid-1970s up until his death in 1981, scored an unprecedented biggest non-Friday Valentine’s Day opening, taking in $14 million when it debuted in theatres on Wednesday, February 14.
“Bob Marley: One Love” is streaming now on Paramount+ and MGM+ in the U.S. and Canada and is available on DVD and Blu-ray.
Filming was done in Jamaica and the U.K.
“If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.”
– Hon. Shirley Chisholm –
“If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.”
– Hon. Shirley Chisholm –
“If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.”
– Hon. Shirley Chisholm –
