The Innovation Team has named Nia Baucke, the team’s former Civic Designer, as its next director. Nia brings extensive experience in community engagement, research, and public-sector innovation, having previously co-founded Cohear, a community-based consulting practice supporting public agencies and healthcare institutions. In that role, she led large-scale community engagement and research initiatives, including serving as a lead partner for the Cincinnati Futures Commission. During her time with the Innovation Team, she helped shape programs through strategic community engagement, research synthesis, and program design.

Pictured: i-Team Director, Nia, speaks on WLWT about the team's E-Bike Incentive Program at last month's Bike Bash event.

The i-Team has a new pilot in the works: Stay Cool Cincy

Cincinnati's youth may be back in school, but summer isn't over. This week's heatwave is a reminder of the ongoing persistence of extreme heat. As the City improves and expands cooling infrastructure, our team, in partnership with the Cincinnati Toolbank, are developing a fast, resident-centered approach that has the potential to grow quickly while also building community.

Stay Cool Cincy puts micro cooling stations into the hands of residents and businesses to manage. Fill up the bucket mister or attach a mister or water fountain to your home's hose. This program puts the care of our neighbors into everyone's hands.

This pilot project seeks to discover if a mutual aid-style intervention to extreme heat is both beneficial to residents and scalable. Participation and feedback gathered this September will inform new station designs and scaling of these stations come summer 2027.

Interested in maybe hosting a cooling station outside of your home or business? Complete this interest form!

Check out local news coverage about Stay Cool Cincy!

• The Enquirer
• Fox19 Now
• WLWT
• WVXU

For the month of September, the i-Team is hosting "Office Hours" in coffee shops around Cincinnati. Stop by Tuesdays to talk about your ideas for improving transportation and mobility. i-Team Community Storyteller, Rachel, will treat you to a cup of coffee on us!

Here's where you can find us:

• Tuesday, Sept. 8th, 9:00am-11:00am - Sidewinder Coffee in Northside
• Tuesday, Sept. 15th, 11:00am-1:00pm - Fable Cafe in Westwood
• Tuesday, Sept. 22nd, 11:00am-1:00pm - Bloc Coffee in Price Hill
• Tuesday, Sept. 29th, 11:00am-1:00pm - Redtree Coffee & Art in OTR

Ideation

This fall, we will resume more Ideation focus groups with residents. Our next upcoming Ideation Session is for Parents & Caretakers. If you or someone you know is a parent or guardian who doesn't own a car or uses other forms of transportation, we want to hear about not only your experience but your ideas!

Interested in joining us for an ideation session this fall, please contact Nia Baucke.

Youth Climate Action Fund

The Office of Environment & Sustainability's GCP Seeds of Change Youth Climate Action Grant Program provides grants of $1000-$5,000 to youth groups ages 15-24 who have an idea for a sustainable solution they want to bring to their school or community. Applications are open!

This year, to give youth a headstart on developing their ideas and applications, OES (with support from the i-Team) will host two Idea Jams around Neighborhoods & Transportation (September 3rd from 4pm-6pm) and Zero Waste (September 12th from 10:30am-12:30pm).

Learn more about the program and share with the organizations, parents, and youth in your life, here.

Our E-Bike Incentive Program is still in full swing! Enjoy the cool weather (once it finally arrives) on a bike.