When we kicked off Cohort 3 of the WTIA Ion Collaborators on June 20, I asked everyone to write down the words to express their state of mind on the first day of their experiment in collaboration. My word was “pinch” because I’m still pinching myself that I get to bring together unlikely collaborators as my work for WTIA. This marks our third cohort in 13 months since launching the program.

WTIA aims to bring together tech, government, and community-based organizations to address community challenges. In the past, we’ve referred to Ion as a “civic collaboration” program. We are now referring to Ion as an “collaboration incubator” because after two cohorts, we believe what we’re really doing is incubating collaboration. Many efforts to engage tech, government, and community-based organizations assume we know how to collaborate. That assumption is wrong. The capacity to collaborate has to be nurtured. WTIA sees Ion as an experiment in cross-sector collaboration itself. We are still running Cohort 2, which will present their final projects at the end of August. We wanted to run two cohorts simultaneously to iterate on this experiment faster.

In the past, we’ve focused on ethnic, racial, and generational diversity among the Collaborators in each cohort. For this cohort, we asked incoming Ion Collaborators to be open to different political viewpoints as we recruited for more conservative voices to help increase political diversity. While we’ve continued to include all functions and levels, this cohort has more senior leaders of mid to large organizations than in the past.

We asked a representative from each sector to describe why they joined Ion:

Latosha Correll, Program Coordinator at Lifelong: “I wanted to join Ion because I wanted to do something unique that other people weren’t doing. I wanted to do more than volunteer. Coming from a community based health organization, Lifelong has always served marginalized communities. While many people who work in the nonprofit world have worked in the corporate world, community based organizations typically do more with less and could really learn more from the tech world. I’m hoping that my organization and other community based organizations really listen to each other and pool their resources and talents and take what I learn to better serve our stakeholders.”

Michael Jacobson, Deputy Director of King County Office of Performance, Strategy, and Budget: “I help King County create the management systems to improve the way we deploy strategies, measure our performance, and follow through on our commitments. Although my job requires partnering and collaboration, it is typically all within our own government or with other governments and usually within a strongly hierarchical structure. I am really interested in learning about the Ion collaboration model and how it works with cross-sector partners who leave their titles at the door so that I can “amp up” the county’s formal collaboration approaches to see how we can develop better strategies to improve the lives of our residents.”

Aadithya Prakash, Firmware Engineer at Synapse Product Development: “Most engineers practice a methodical process of designing, manufacturing, and testing solutions for devices and systems. But without fully understanding the problem being addressed, many of these solutions are technically flawless, but practically useless. I personally have seen this through my experience working in the fields of field ecology and medical devices, where the disconnect between disciplines has led to sub-optimal solutions. I joined the WTIA as an Ion Collaborator to break down the silos that separate the government, non-profit, and tech sectors, allowing us to design better solutions for the community.”

As you can see, Ion Collaborators are selected for their natural ability to collaborate, their strong sense of curiosity, and their potential to make an impact in their organizations and communities.

We’re excited that 14 out of 18 of the Ion Collaborators come from organizations that did not participate in the first two cohorts. New government departments and agencies represented include Seattle IT; Seattle Public Library; and King County Dept. of Performance, Strategy, and Budget. We also have our first elected official, a Precinct Committee Officer from Snohomish County. New participating tech companies include Coorio, DreamBox Learning, Synapse Product Development, and Digital Ocean. Community-based organizations include Treehouse, Casa Latina, FareStart, the Service Board, and Lifelong. As with the first two cohorts, we made a concerted effort to include labor, as represented by SEIU 775 Benefits Group. Organizations that have had representatives in previous cohorts include City of Seattle’s Office of Economic Development, Port of Seattle, Amazon, and F5 Networks.

Cohort 3 of the WTIA Ion Collaborators will stay together through November. The Ion Program team includes Dr. Julie Pham, Dr. Judy Lee, Cole Hoover, Sara Bromling, and Malissa Wilson.

Corhort 3 Ion Collaborators:

Layla Anane, the Service Board

André Bearfield, Here Seattle & DigitalOcean

Latosha Correll, Lifelong

Seferiana Day, Seattle Information Technology

Eryn Doerffler, DreamBox Learning

Jane Geiser, F5 Networks

Kreg Hasegawa, Seattle Public Library

Maxx Kaplan, FareStart

Michael Jacobson, King County – PSB

Marcos Martinez, Casa Latina

Jessica Ross, Treehouse

Alex Peder, Corrio, SPC

Kuan Peng, Amazon

Manis Pierre, Snohomish County PCO

Aadithya Prakash, Synapse Product Development

Aaron Pritchard, Port of Seattle

Phillip Sit, Seattle Office of Economic Development

Abigail Solomon, SEIU 775 Benefits Group

You can read updates on Cohort 1’s completed projects: Second Chance Hiring, Commute Seattle’s Neighborhood Finder, and Bonfire in a Box. Cohort 2 will have their final presentation on Aug 29 at the Ionosphere at Impact Hub. Please register here.