Building a Better Tech Future for Children
Our September 14th gathering with the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop; Building a Better Tech Future for Children
On Wednesday, September 14th All Tech Is Human and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop welcomed a broad mix of researchers, Trust & Safety professionals, youth advocates, designers, entrepreneurs, mental health professionals, academics and more for our gathering in NYC from 4-6pm. Our aim is to build community, share resources, and find moments of collaboration and co-creation who work at the intersection of media and technology, learning, and well-being for children. We'll also talk about The Responsible Innovation in Technology for Children (RITEC) project, what it means to think about "well-being" when it comes to growing up digital — and how technology might be harnessed to support, rather than harm, children's healthy development.
This gathering built on All Tech Is Human’s recent gathering at the Australian Embassy in Washington, DC (Youth, Tech, and Wellbeing) that brought in individuals from the Beeck Center for Social Impact & Innovation, Berkman Klein Center, British Embassy, Center for Countering Digital Hate, Center for Democracy & Technology, Embassy of France to the US, Family Online Safety Institute, Future of Privacy Forum, GIFCT, Google, Headstream, Hopelab, Integrity Institute, Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, Meta, Mozilla Foundation, Oversight Board, Polarization & Extremism Research & Innovation Lab at American University, Spectrum Labs, Tech Coalition, TechCongress, Thorn, TikTok, the United Nations and more. Our organization also recently released its HX Report: Aligning Our Tech Future With the Human Experience.
Panel for Building a Better Tech Future for Children
Emma Leiken
Emma is currently Chief of Staff of Programs at Omidyar Network where she works closely with ON's SVP-Programs. A member of ON’s Responsible Technology team, she also focuses on private trustworthy messaging and co-leads a learning portfolio related to youth organizing and technology. She is committed to ensuring human rights, trustworthiness, information integrity, and belonging in both online and offline spaces.
More broadly, Emma is a liberal arts technologist with experience and interests in responsible technology and international development. Emma's research experience spans The London School of Economics and Google where she has focused on the role of human intermediaries in India’s Aadhaar biometric ID infrastructure and the financial challenges faced by new internet users in India, Indonesia, Mexico and Brazil. Emma was a recipient of a Fulbright-Nehru Research Fellowship where she led research related to human rights, gender, and religious studies, in Maharashtra, India. Passionate about the intersection of arts and social change, she has also worked in civil society on performing arts education initiatives in rural Maharashtra. She holds a B.A. in religion from Oberlin College and an M.A. in international development from the LSE. Emma serves on the board Cyber Collective.
Bre’Lynn Jade Lombard
Bre'Lynn is a curator, educator and innovator; she uses creative technologies to build bridges of intercultural understanding and empathy. She works to create institutional change by uncovering shared experiences and initiating belief conversions. Bre'Lynn began her career in education, as Fulbright Scholar where she researched arts integrated practices in education and its relationship in furthering the goal of decolonizing historical narratives and identity development in adolescents. Transferring her skills in adolescent development and learning, she now serves as Product Policy manager for the Global Minor Safety team at TikTok. Bre’Lynn’s mantra is “Create what should exist”.
Michael Rich, MD, MPH is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Part Time, at Harvard Medical School and practices Adolescent Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital. Dr. Rich is also the Founding Director of the first evidence-based medical program addressing physical, mental, and social health issues associated with digital technology, the Clinic for Interactive Media and Internet Disorders (CIMAID). As The Mediatrician®, Dr. Rich offers research-based, balanced, and practical answers to parents’, teachers’, and clinicians’ questions about children’s media use and the positive and negative implications for their health and development. Understanding the power of screens to engage, connect, and change us all, he is bringing together pediatricians and software engineers, educators and designers, psychologists, and screenwriters in the Digital Wellness Lab to synergize in researching, responding to, and innovating a digital environment in which we can raise healthy, smart, productive, and kind children. Dr. Rich came to medicine after a 12-year career as a filmmaker, including apprenticing to Akira Kurosawa as assistant director on Kagemusha. His experience and expertise in medicine and media synergize in his health research and clinical work. Dr. Rich earned his B.A. in English and Film from Pomona College, his M.D. from Harvard Medical School, and his M.P.H. from the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.
Ishva Mehta (Headstream Accelerator): Ishva Mehta is a student at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. She likes to build and help others build. She is passionate about equity, education, and leveraging tech to strengthen communities. Ishva’s personal mission is to empower others to achieve their goals through my work and experiences.
Guilherma Souza (Headstream Accelerator). Guilherma Souza is a bubbly immigrant girl with trans experience who strives to make the world a better, more informed place little by little. Furthermore, being an innovator will allow her to share a little bit of her science and philosophy knowledge which she considers an honor. Her friends describe her as a sweet kind hearted person or as the therapist of the group. Some of her hobbies include editing, gaming, dancing and makeup.
Mina Aslan is the Headstream’s Program Manager overseeing the Youth 2 Innovator programs for young people around the country. She has worked in youth empowerment within grassroots community building programs along with international youth conferences working towards social and economic justice within development. Mina is an advocate for utilizing design for social change towards youth empowerment, social justice, economic development, and community building to build a more just world.
Keynote by Dr Elizabeth Milovidov
Dr Elizabeth Milovidov is Senior Manager of Digital Child Safety at The LEGO Group and Founder of Digitalem. Her current consulting projects include: Council of Europe (independent expert on Digital Parenting and Children and Internet for the Children’s Rights Division), Microsoft (Digital Safety support), e-Enfance (advisor, European Cooperation and International Projects).
Her core work involves researching solutions for parenting in the digital age, then spreading awareness in Instagram format for parents and TikTok format for young people. She founded Digitalem (formerly digitalparentingcoach.com), a website and community with resources for parents and caregivers.