About Event
At Svitla Systems, we believe the best conversations begin over a shared table. Our Good People Dinners series brings together a community of tech leaders for meaningful dialogue and chef-crafted meals. This intimate evening is designed for senior executives who value authenticity, trust, and genuine connection.
Join us for Good People Dinner, New York on May 20 at 6 PM.
Please register to be considered >>>
Capacity is very limited.
Invited speaker
Dario Calmese is an American creative director, photographer, and design theorist whose work explores how image, environment, and technology shape lived experience, identity, and cultural narrative. Working across photography, design, fashion, and performance, he is known for challenging traditional systems of representation and creating space for new cultural perspectives to emerge.
In 2020, Dario made history as the first Black photographer to shoot a cover for Vanity Fair in the magazine’s 106-year history, with his portrait of Viola Davis. The same year, he founded The Institute of Black Imagination, a global platform dedicated to advancing Black creativity and cultural production across art, design, technology, and beyond.
In New York, Dario will open a thought-provoking conversation on creativity, technology, representation, and the systems that shape how we see ourselves and one another, including:
- how AI is redrawing who gets to make images — and whose stories get told
- what it means to build systems that reflect the full range of human experience
- how technology reinforces or disrupts identity, representation, and memory
- what tech leaders can learn from creative practice about building with intention
- why innovation depends on expanding whose imagination we draw from
Expect a conversation that is expansive, culturally sharp, and highly relevant for leaders thinking about the intersection of creativity, systems, and the future.
Invited chef
Chef Rala Ziadeh will create the evening’s menu.
Rala's culinary story begins in Aleppo — a city renowned for its rich culinary heritage — where her grandmother's extraordinary cooking and the rhythms of seasonal preservation shaped her earliest understanding of food as both craft and culture. From rose jam and tomato paste to pickles, dried vegetables, and liquors, Rala grew up in a kitchen where every technique carried a story and nothing was wasted.
After chapters in Damascus and Canada, Rala eventually made her home in Brooklyn, where she has channeled that Syrian culinary lineage into an intimate, deeply personal cooking practice. Her food honors the flavors of her childhood while embracing the warmth and community of her adopted city.
For Good People Dinner, New York, Rala brings a menu rooted in memory, heritage, and the generosity of the table — dishes built on the belief that the best food holds within it the love and care of everyone who came before.
This is a private, by-invitation gathering. Expect an evening of thoughtful conversation, extraordinary food, and a room shaped for meaningful connection.
