EbaNee Bond’s favorite mechanical engineering class at the University of Akron was Fundamentals of Mechanical Vibration.It explored the theory that every material or system has its own natural frequency and that when a system meets an external force with a similar frequency, there will be unbounded growth.Bond translates that theory to life, her own and to those who live in Greater Akron.“It’s my duty to figure out what these external forces are, and are they resonating with my internal compass,” Bond said.She’s also working to help Akron find its vibe, hoping to make it “a lighthouse for all the underdogs.” “How do we bounce back better than ever, where Black people can fit in and know they will be heard,” she said.Bond — who has a degree in mechanical engineering but doesn’t want to be an engineer — is using her unique skill set combining science, communication and creativity to help Greater Akron realize its potential through diversity and inclusion.In February, after saving some money, Bond became “voluntarily unemployed” to “unbox myself” and figure out what she wants to do.Yet this Akron millennial may be working more hours unemployed than many others working full time.Among other things, Bond:• Co-chairs the diversity and inclusion task force at Torchbearers, which aims to strengthen the connection between Akron-area nonprofits and emerging leaders.• Serves on a new Summit County task force aimed at changing structural and systemic racism and promoting racial equity after Summit County Council declared racism a public health crisis in June. • Teaches an eight-week entrepreneurship class at the Akron Urban League that helps people learn lingo, understand concepts to launch their own businesses and connects them with local resources to help.• Sits on a microloan advisory board for Asian Services in Action (ASIA Inc.) that helps people who often can’t get traditional bank loans.“EbaNee is such a change maker,” said Meghan Meeker, director of engagement and social media at Amp Strategy and vice president of Torchmakers’ board. “She’s all about asking, ‘How are we going to implement this change instead of talking about it? Enough ideas, let’s do.’ ”Finding herself, AkronBond, 30, lives in Akron’s Ellet neighborhood now. But she grew up on the north side of Mansfield and was lured to Akron by UA’s high-quality engineering program, she said.“I like that in engineering, a fact is a fact and you figure out cool stuff,” Bond said. But after two years of studying engineering, Bond said she was frustrated by the ongoing study of math without applying it to real-life situations.“I switched to biology and thought, ‘I’ll be a pediatrician, I’ll give kids hope,’ ” she said. “But then I realized I hated school. I don’t want to be a doctor. Who am I kidding?”Three-and-a-half years into her bachelor’s degree, Bond dropped out of UA. Over the next 18 months, she fell into poverty.“I couldn’t afford to go across town,” she said.Then, someone at UA reached out because the school saw her potential that sometimes Bond didn’t see in herself.“They said, ‘Nobody like you should be out of school ... and hey, if it’s the money, don’t worry about that,’ ” Bond said. Bond returned to UA with a scholarship.“All my life – and I’m sure a lot of other minorities probably feel the same way – I’ve felt inadequate,” Bond later told UA. “I’ve been intelligent, but … I still never really felt that way.”Returning to school wasn’t easy. She was living in Canton, working about 45 hours a week, and discovered she'd forgotten many of the concepts she'd learned three years earlier.“The language of engineering is math, not words,” she said. “I didn’t remember the language.”But she plowed ahead until one day while walking through the campus library she saw an ad for UA’s Experiential Learning Center for Entrepreneurship and Civic Engagement, commonly called the EX[L] Center.The ad mentioned blueprints, which reminded Bond of a Martin Luther King Jr. speech that asked: “What is in your life’s blueprint?”Bond soon became involved in the EX[L] Center — which supports community-based, experiential learning — and it changed her academic life.And in the summer of 2017, Bond landed an internship in Boston that changed her future and how she looked at Akron.“When you walk down the street [in Boston], people don’t acknowledge you, it’s almost like ‘get out of my way,’ ” Bond said. “I missed Akron. I missed its hospitality. I remember I couldn’t wait to get off of the plane so I could look at a stranger and we could both smile.”When Bond graduated, she had an offer to work as a system sales engineer for Dell computers in Boston. But she chose to stay in Akron and enter the nonprofit realm.“You can create who you want to be here,” she said. “People are not only willing to help, but eager.”Meeker met Bond when she was working as an entrepreneurial fellow at the UA Research Foundation.“I told her she was the coolest and that I needed her in my life,” said Meeker, who urged Bond to join Torchbearers.The organization was founded by a group of white men in 2003 to build bridges between established community leaders and leaders of the future.But the unintentional silos and pillars needed to come down, Meeker said.“We’re in a really, really beautiful place now with friendships and relationships that really reflect Akron now,” Meeker said. “But there’s always room for improvement.”Bond, she said, is helping drive that by infusing every level of Torchbearers with diversity and inclusion, an effort that began a couple of years ago, but has taken off since Bond began co-chairing the effort with Emily Grnach.Bond said they gathered feedback for Torchbearers members and then combined it with 200 points of data.“That boiled it down to ‘Here are the things we need to learn,’ ” Bond said.Learning sessions will include “how to be an ‘interrupter’ and have difficult conversations with integrity,” she said.There will be other sessions on anti-racism, structural and institutional racism; and how to decrease economic disparity, get involved politically and set up equity plans.The lessons will impact not only Torchbearers members, but how they do their work and with whom. In 2017, for instance,100-plus Torchbearers contributed more than 2,700 volunteer hours to more than 150 organizations, from the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank and Summit Metro Parks to Highland Square’s PorchRokr and Akron’s Big Love Network.Meeker said she’s already seeing change.At a Torchbearers events subcommittee meeting, organizers said they needed to make sure than 30% of vendors were minority owned.“Anything EbaNee is part of, I can see change happening,” Meeker said.Bond’s new Akron podcast with Futuro will be previewed May 6 and will later be available anywhere you download podcasts.In mid-April, she was still deciding on a name, possibly “Unboxing Resonance” or “Unboxing a Resonant Future," referring back to the theory of mechanical vibration and life.The first season will focus on her childhood experiences and incidents that shaped her belief system.After that, she hopes to interview entrepreneurs.“Maybe you realized how much you enjoyed cookies and you turned that into something,” Bond said. “Or you grew up in the hood and realized what all of these systems do to disadvantaged people and you’re changing that.”She doesn’t see podcasting as her next job, though.“It’s just a creative outlet for me,” she said.In the next couple of months, if she doesn’t hit on a job that she thinks will resonate with her, Bond said she’ll likely go into medical device sales because that leverages both her science and communication backgrounds.But she’ll continue to work for Akron, for diversity and for inclusion.“If you can make it better for Black people,” she said, “you can make it better for everyone else.”