We’re honored to announce our second cohort of the WTIA Ion Program. We held the Kickoff and Orientation for the 18 new Ion Collaborators at the ionosphere inside the Impact Hub Seattle on March 14, less than four months after we finished the pilot of Ion last year.

“The power/wisdom/empathy of our cohort is so strong and I’m excited by the possibilities of our collective work,” said Amber Rose Jimenez, a new Ion Collaborator.

Ion is a civic collaboration program led by WTIA that brings together tech, government, and nonprofits to tackle community challenges. Working in small teams, volunteers from each sector work directly with the community to determine an issue and use their combined expertise to create spin-off projects that address it. They have strict deadlines, no budget to work with, and no financial or political reward. Furthermore, their solution must be adopted by a local nonprofit, government agency, or company to ensure that the project lives on for years to come. 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.

Last year, we built the Ion program as we were running it. Looking back, the first cohort were truly co-creators with WTIA. We’ve implemented a lot of their feedback to improve the program for this cohort.

What hasn’t changed is our focus on making participation in Ion as inclusive as possible. To be part of the inclusive and diverse cohort assembled by Ion, Collaborators accept to look past typical hierarchies such as age, seniority, job title, function, organization size and prestige, and educational pedigree. We believe we live in a community with shared values. The Ion Collaborators respect that people have different approaches on to how to live those shared values. They see that difference as a source of strength and innovation. In Ion, they get to harness differences and leverage resources to create greater impact.

For this cohort, WTIA was particularly focused on increasing the age diversity of the cohort and fostering intergenerational collaboration. As a result, one-third are under age 30, one-third are 31-50, and one-third are 50 years and older, with a 50 year delta between the youngest and oldest Collaborator. Over half are women, one-third are first or second-generation immigrants, and two-thirds are people of color. There’s also a wide geographic range. The Ion Collaborators live as far north as Everett and as south as Tacoma. They also live in Woodinville, Bellevue, Seattle, and Kent.

We’re also excited that 16 out of 18 of the Ion Collaborators come from organizations that did not participate in the first cohort. Aside from three City of Seattle departments, the government sector is represented by Seattle Public Schools, King County Dept. of Transportation, and the Port of Seattle. While we have another cohort from Amazon, tech companies new to Ion this year are F5 Networks, The Boeing Company, Docusign, Zillow, and Sirius 6. Community-based organizations include Urban Impact, DESC, United Negro College Fund, and Post Prison Education Program. Year Up is the other returning organization to have an Ion Collaborator. As with the first cohort, we make a concerted effort to include labor, as represented by Teamsters Local 117.

Like last year, the 18 Ion Collaborators are split into three 6-person teams with each team focused on livability, accessibility, or economic growth. You can check out each 2017 team’s completed projects: Second Chance Hiring, Commute Seattle’s Neighborhood Finder, and Bonfire in a Box. Five out of the original six members of the 2017 Economic Growth Ion team are still collaborating on finding ways to help get formerly incarcerated individuals get jobs, especially through the Post Prison Education Program. Its Executive Director, Ari Kohn, joined the 2018 cohort after learning about Ion through this team.

This Ion Collaborators cohort will stay together through August. The Ion Program team includes Dr. Judy Lee and Cole Hoover.

2018 Ion Collaborators:

Ryan Biava, Seattle City Light

Jeffrey Brown, Port of Seattle – SeaTac Airport

Melanie Chavez, Year Up

Praveen Dani, F5 Networks inc

Elena Edwards, King County Dept. of Transportation

Takele Gobena, Teamsters Local 117

Brandie Henry, The Boeing Company

Amber Rose Jimenez, Seattle Office of Arts & Culture

Ari Kohn, Post-Prison Education Program

Vonzell McDowell, United Negro College Fund

Barbara Miller, Downtown Emergency Service Center

Nicholas Mitchell, DocuSign

Alexis Perlmutter, Amazon

Amanda Sopkin, Zillow

B.J. Stewart, Urban Impact

Jeanne Suleiman, Seattle Public Schools

Ariska Thompson, Seattle Public Utilities

Lorraine Yu, Sirius 6

We’re always looking for people to get involved and lend their expertise to the Ion Collaborators program. You can view Ion volunteering opportunities here.