We thank the 70+ people who co-created this forum. When we say our mission is collective impact that is community-led and co-creative, this is what we’re talking about!
Thank you to Brad Whitwell and Rachel Kate Miller for leading the work on our design team. The three of us met regularly over the year and took the forum from idea to launch by interviewing people, choosing a platform, and designing the way our forum is organized.
Thank you to Sean Perkins for being our technical implementer. We’re online and working because of your expertise. Thank you also to the team and contributors behind the Discourse platform, with special shout-outs to David Taylor, Jeff Atwood, Sam Saffron, Sarah Hawk, Jay Pfaffman, Joffrey Jaffeux, Taylor Shenry, Arpit Jalan, Régis Hanol, Robert, James Kiesel, Rafael dos Santos Silva, Michael Brown, Daniela, Stephen, Dannii, and Alan Tan, who answered and responded to all our technical questions and feedback.
Thank you to those who used our old forum on Slack. You used the forum to share jobs, invite people to events, and build relationships. We give a special shout-out to Laura Patterson, who created the Slack group. We give another to our welcoming committee led by Alli Lee: Ash Kaluarachchi, Bianca Cabrera, Brad Whitwell, Lawrese Brown, Meg Davis, Mike Boyle, Mim Ingvarson, Steven Goss, and Peter Herzberg. You met with every new person who signed up, introducing them to the #NYCEDU community and spreading the spirit of collaboration and co-creation!
Thank you to those who answered our survey and/or were interviewed about how you view technology and community: Alma Idehen, Bernadette Davis, Bill Kuhn, Caroline Starke, Dan Ryan, Daniel Shimmyo, David Arvelo, Dulce M Marquez, Emma Volpe, Erin Jacques, Hunter Zwack, Isaiah Bobe, Jason Caldwell, Jessi Langsen, Joe Moran, Julianne Bozzo, Kathryn Clinard, Lisa Gerson, Malee, Mary Hough, Mim Ingvarson, Nigel Frazier, Ryan Hoch, Victoria Ringston. Your answers formed the basis of our decisions about which platform to use and what our forum is for.
Thank you to those who tested our forum when it was just launched, when you were the first to sign up, to post, and to give feedback: Kyle Liao, Dany DeGrave, Julia Cabanas, Kevin Celisca, Kevin Hyatt, Lili Arkin, Maxwell Witt, Paloma Garcia, Sarah Zapiler, Shaniah Francis, Sokhnadiarra Ndiaye, Bernadette Davis, Dulce M Marquez, Hunter Zwack, Joe Moran, Arti Doshi, Raquel Rios. We’ve made many changes since then to get to where we are now.
Finally, thank you to our legal team Chirag Dedania, Leah Wong, and Peter Labonski for creating our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy. You’re keeping our forum safe for everyone.
If I missed anyone, please let me know so that we can add your name! My intention is to celebrate each and every one of you, so please know that you are valued and any commission is unintentional.
What makes our forum special is WHO are here, WHY we’re here, and HOW we work.
We’re an intergenerational, multi-racial, cross-class, and cross-issue community of people united in our mission to power youth-led collective impact. We’re youth leaders, educators, parents, non-profit leaders, technologists, business owners, advocates, and more.
We are here to meet and collaborate with people who we may never have had the opportunity to meet before in a city as large and diverse as our own. We believe that by being community-led, comprehensive, co-creative, human-centered, equity-centered, well-capitalized and courageous to equip ALL of New York City’s young people to flourish.
We’ve made intentional choices to honor our why. The people who’ve contributed to this forum cross age, race, class, and issue. We use a platform that welcomes young people ages 13-17 create accounts, is accessible on any public internet-capable device, and is open-source, meaning anyone can propose and make their own improvements to the site. Most importantly, as this forum grows, we will foster it as a space where we are all included, where we are all acting in accordance to our principles of collective impact and our values of lead with love, build in public, own our impact, embrace on emergence, and act on principle.
If you’re already signed up with an account, welcome again! If you haven’t signed up yet, click here to create an account.
Community is an emergent process, and to live our WHO, WHY, and HOW, we need to work, live, and be together. Our new online forum is currently a place of possibility. Let’s translate that possibility into impact.
Best,
Deborah
P.S. Check out this one last treat, a word cloud of how people defined community in our online forum survey. It’s people, it’s purpose, it’s one, it’s family.
