27/08/2026
Tonight’s speakers are truly something special.
Danielle Hayward is returning to stand with i-LEAD for the fourth year of the Global Women’s Safety Summit.
But Danielle’s contribution to our work goes beyond the Summit. When we were building Lizzie AI Safety, Danielle brought her compliance expertise to the process, helping us consider areas including POPIA and how we could build the tool responsibly. That kind of support behind the scenes matters enormously.
So having her back tonight, this time helping South African women better understand their rights, feels very full circle.
And then there’s Bear Fiorda.
Bear didn’t know us. He didn’t know i-LEAD. We reached out from South Africa, told him what we were trying to do — and he was willing to show up.
Bear has built an extraordinary international platform around martial arts and accessible self-defense. Free MMA’s YouTube channel alone has more than 500,000 subscribers, and his wider social media reach has previously been reported at around one million followers. More importantly to me, he founded Free MMA Gyms to make martial arts training available to people who might otherwise never be able to afford it.
For someone with that kind of reach to simply say yes, give his time and share his skills with women here in South Africa says a lot about the person behind the platform.
We’re incredibly grateful to both of them.
FREE + Virtual | 18:00 SAST
i-lead.org.za/events
Daniélle Hayward
