Digitize
DIGITIZE empowers high school students and young adults with lifelong digital skills and a platform for creative, collaborative storytelling. Youth-driven and community-focused, our program builds leadership skills and cross-cultural awareness, equipping students to confidently amplify their voices.
Our Goals
Our goals with EchoX's DIGITIZE program are as follows:
- Celebrate the Pacific Northwest's rich, diverse cultures.
- Expand access to digital literacy and technology, from online content creation to coding a website.
- Amplify youth voices and creativity through self-expression on identity, supported by peer-to-peer connections.
- Build leadership skills in the digital age.
- Promote digital equity as a core part of the program.
Current Programs
"Story Gathering" series for youth and young adults
Learn the building blocks of collecting community stories that matter.
Our “Story Gathering: Workshop” teaches high school students storytelling skills that centers around “own voices,” a central theme of unity and understanding across cultures (and community). “Story Gathering: Sandbox” is a similar program targeting young adults, ages 18-29.
The program empowers participant self-expression around their identities and cultural heritage as they move into adulthood.
Youth social media fellowships
Our DIGITIZE Youth Fellowships are paid, short-term opportunities for high school students. They provide guidance and experience to those who want to gain skills in the digital sphere.
We just closed applications for our two youth fellowship opportunities focused on creating and running social media campaigns. Learn more about the youth social media fellowships!
Our youth fellowship program began in 2022. Since then, we’ve worked with Washington State high school students, helping them learn various digital skills that apply to areas beyond the non-profit space such as outreach, marketing, and team experience! Over the last three years, our students have created social media posts, strategised outreach approaches, recorded mini podcasts, and more!
We continue to create new opportunities and welcome questions, inquiries, or suggestions! To learn more, email us at digitize@echox.org.
"How to Look Cool Online" web development workshop
“How to Look Cool Online” is a beginner’s web development workshop imagined and brought to life by former EchoX DIGITIZE Youth Council member Jacob Arnez.
After learning he could add his own flair and authenticity to his web design, Jacob set out to teach other young digital creatives to become more comfortable expressing themselves online, too.
Read more about How to Look Cool Online and see what our students accomplished last summer!
We’re planning to host the “How to Look Cool Online” Workshop again next summer. Follow us on Instagram (@echoxnw) or subscribe to our newsletter to receive updates.
Plans for the Future
Community engagement and place-based learning
DIGITIZE envisions creating opportunities for students to meet new people and learn more about the Pacific Northwest’s rich diversity.
These events will be inspired by our new youth fellows and are meant to allow students to pursue their curiosities.
We hope that these events will be opportunities for meaningful cross-cultural dialogues and hold space for students to explore their identities as multifaceted people.
Past Programs
Several students from our previous summer workshops came back, ready to flex their creativity and learn more HTML coding skills. This year, they built a collaborative website that combined all the student’s strengths and passions under a common theme. They heard from guest speakers with tech, storytelling, and web design skills that all helped guide the students to bring their visions to life.
Our Youth Council was the core of DIGITIZE. It met regularly to plan events, help guide the DIGITIZE initiatives, develop leadership skills for the future and connect over shared interests and identities. Due to the pandemic, the Youth Council and DIGITIZE underwent some reframing. We have transitioned to youth fellowships as mentioned above in “Plans for the Future”, but we hope to bring the youth council back soon.
Digital literacy builds agency and self-determination, making it a crucial skill for the digital age. Our summer camp was designed to teach students Python, an easy-to-read coding language, to create programs and create innovative digital content.
Due to COVID-19 precautions, the 2020 and 2021 summer camps were canceled. Instead, in 2020, we held an online mentorship program for participants in the 2019 summer camp. The 2021 summer camp was replaced by the “How to Look Cool Online” Level I workshop.
Workshops
Story Gathering Series
Applications for our 2025 Story Gathering: Workshop for high school students are now open! Apply for the youth workshop today!
Check out last year’s workshop and sandbox pieces or browse through the stories from last year’s cohorts.
Interested in applying for our next cohort? Follow us on social media @echoxnw and sign up for our DIGITIZE mailing list for updates and opportunities.
How to Look Cool Online
Curious about what our participants created this year? Check out the websites and the workshop recap on Voices!
Listen to a past DIGITIZE workshop participant talk about her experience with EchoX and DIGITIZE!
