The members of Ion’s third cohort have officially gained alumni status. After six months of collaborating, they said goodbye (or, in some cases, see you soon) to their projects and fellow collaborators on November 28 at the Ionosphere, Impact Hub.  Before parting ways, each of the three Ion teams revealed their ideas for improving accessibility in the public domain, boosting economic growth, and making Seattle a more livable place.

The night started out with past Ion Collaborators, Ion program supporters, and program participants mingling and sharing their reasons for being there. One audience member revealed that she supported the program because it was an example of “the way that Seattle tech should be looking at problems that impact them and their communities.”

Due to the ambiguous nature of the program, attendees like Cohort 2 Livability team member Melanie Chavez predicted there would be a wide range of creative ideas presented. “I’m excited to see the variety of the…thoughts that came out of the projects,” she said.

WTIA spoke with each team about the goals, strategies, and takeaways of each of their projects.

Accessibility

The team set out  to increase awareness of and accessibility to locally-owned small businesses in Seattle neighborhoods most impacted by gentrification and displacement. They went through many project iterations, including organizing a Moth storytelling event and creating a space finder website before they landed on creating on their final concept, Seattle VolunTech. They worked with Democracy Lab to create the web-based platform for connecting small businesses in immigrant communities and communities of color to tech volunteers that have the skill sets to help them develop their technology infrastructure.

“Building trust early was the key to our collaboration,” said Accessibility team member Andre Bearfield, a product manager with DigitalOcean.

Team member Seferiana Day introduced VolunTech at the graduation. She said that the project is still ongoing.

“We’ve talked to Code Fellows and Ethnic Business Coalition who are interested in adoption…At this time, the platform is incomplete,” she said. The team has committed to working together until February to complete the service.

Economic Growth

This team wanted to spark a meaningful conversation about equity and inclusion.  They faced a great deal of change on their way to achieving this goal—four months in, a team member left and was replaced with a new one, which changed the whole dynamic of their team and direction of their project. (Read a more behind-the-scenes look at their challenges here.)

After the new member came onboard, the team decided to host an equity and inclusion discussion through a cross-sector lens. The event generated a significant amount of interest.

“We set out to let employers know they are not alone in tackling this issue of diversity and inclusivity. What we didn’t know at the time was how much hunger there really was in this topic to address cross-sector collaboration. The registration filled up within days of our invitations going out,” said team member Kuan Peng, a software developer at Amazon.

“I was really impressed by how organized they were,” said even participant Lorri Porcincula during the Q&A portion of the presentation. Her organization, WorkSource, will adopt the lessons learned from this team’s event and incorporate it into WorkSource workshops on diversity and inclusion.

Livability

Addressing the topic of livability in Seattle is no easy feat. Seattle is notoriously an expensive city to live in and “access to technology isn’t equitable in low-income communities,” said Phillip Sit, the team’s presenter and an advisor at the Seattle Office of Economic Development (OED). This can make it more difficult for the voices of artists living in these communities to be heard. The team decided to demonstrate how technology can promote storytelling and showcase the benefits public art provides to local communities.

Sit was approached by Mt Baker Hub Alliance about two murals near the Mt Baker Light Rail Station that had just gotten started. At first, the team was going to produce a 360 video to showcase public art using a 360 camera borrowed from OED. Eventually, the team realized there were limitations to the 360 video, so they ended up creating two videos, a traditional video with interviews with the artists and local community members, and an 360 video of the murals featuring an unedited interview with the artists. Livability team member, Marcos Martinez, the executive director at Casa Latina, tapped into previous radio journalism experience and borrowed recording equipment from KRVU Rainier Valley Radio to to conduct the interview.

“None of us had digital media knowledge…We all needed to stretch our skills,” said Sit. Latosha Correll, a program coordinator at Lifelong, learned how to use a 360 camera for the project, and Alex Peder, CEO of Corrio, recorded footage with his iPhone. They were aided by an honorary team member, Sid Benavente, who edited the footage for the team.

The Mt Baker Hub Alliance will host the videos. You view the the six-minute overview of Community Building through Public Art: Mt Baker here and the 26-minute interview with the artists Ari Glass and Craig Cundiff 360 video here. (Watch it from the YouTube app on your phone or use the cursor from your computer to get the 360 experience.) The team is going to document how they put together the videos and share it with grant-making bodies at the City of Seattle and with local arts and community organizations.