Responsible Tech DC: A Better Tech Future for Youth
All Tech Is Human is proud to host a curated gathering for 250 individuals focused on improving digital spaces for youth and strengthening the field of Trust & Safety.
All Tech Is Human is proud to host Responsible Tech DC: A Better Tech Future For Youth, a landmark gathering of Trust & Safety professionals, researchers, civil society orgs, youth advocates, youth leaders, and other groups on Wednesday, February 28, at Union Stage in Washington, DC from 6:00-9:00 PM ET. Responsible Tech DC: A Better Tech Future for Youth will feature two panels, complimentary food and drink, and dedicated time to socialize, share resources, foster valuable connections, and learn from each other.
We are now accepting applications to attend Responsible Tech DC: A Better Tech Future! Click below to begin the process.
Some of the companies, organizations, and universities that will be in attendance include:
Accountable Tech, Airbnb, Alliance for Peacebuilding (AfP), Atlantic Council, Berkman Klein Center, Bipartisan Policy Center, Center for Democracy & Technology, Center for Humane Technology, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Center for Tech and Civic Life, Children and Screens, Common Sense Media, Council for Responsible Social Media, Crisis Text Line, Delegation of the European Union to the United States, Digital Democracy Institute of the Americas (DDIA), Discord, Electronic Arts (EA), Encode Justice, Fairplay, FOSI, Future of Privacy Forum, Georgetown University, German Marshall Fund, Global Network Initiative, Howard University, Institute for Security + Technology, Integrity Institute, The International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children, International Forum for Democratic Studies, JFFLabs, Match Group, Mental Health America, Meta, Moonshot, Mozilla Foundation, National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, National Democratic Institute (NDI), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), New America, Nonviolent Peaceforce, Omidyar Network, Online News Association, Pinterest, Reuters, Search for Common Ground, Siegel Family Endowment, Stanford Internet Observatory, Tech Coalition, Tech Matters, Tech Policy Press, TechCongress, The Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening, The Reclaim Coalition, Thorn, TikTok, Toronto Metropolitan University, Trust & Safety Forum, Trust & Safety Foundation (TSF), University of Pennsylvania, USAID, VSCO, Wikimedia Foundation, X, Yoti, Young People's Alliance, and YouTube.
Panel 1: How are platforms designing for young people around safety, inclusion, and autonomy?
Panel Description:
Platforms wield influence over the lives of their users, particularly vulnerable populations like youth. Their design choices shape young people's experiences online and have far-reaching effects on their offline lives, impacting their sense of identity, safety, and inclusion in society. This panel seeks to explore how we can bridge gaps in the tech industry, including the business language, success indicators, and user safety initiatives within platforms to prioritize the well-being and agency of young users.
READ ABOUT THE PANELISTS
Adele Ann Taylor is a passionate advocate for youth safety online as the Youth Digital Programs and Partnerships Senior Manager at Thorn, a nonprofit combatting online child sexual abuse. Leading the NoFiltr youth brand, she empowers young individuals to navigate the online world safely, fostering collaborations between youth and tech platforms to bring youth voices to the table. Adele holds a Bachelor of Arts from Spelman College and a Masters in International Peace Studies from Trinity College, Dublin. Beyond Thorn, she founded Adele’s Literacy Library, promoting global literacy, and serves as a board member for The Gem Project, advocating for educational opportunities for youth.
Dr. Siva Mathiyazhagan, Research Assistant Professor and Associate Director of Strategies and Impact at the SAFE Lab, University of Pennsylvania and faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University. Dr. Mathiyazhagan was a RSM Assembly Fellow (2022-23) at the Institute of Rebooting social media, Harvard University. He co-creates tech social work policies and social work ethical considerations for Artificial Intelligence(AI), Machine Learning (ML), and Metaverse for social equity. Dr. Mathiyazhagan deploys a hybrid version of qualitative indigenous research methodologies and Contextual Analysis of Social Media (CASM) to understand youth expressions on social media in native/regional languages to prevent emotional extremisms. Dr. Mathiyazhagan is the Founder-Director of the youth-led non-profit Trust for Youth and Child Leadership (TYCL) International, based in Asia and the Americas. Dr. Mathiyazhagan serves as a TYCL representative to the United Nations.
Victoria McCullough currently leads TikTok's Trust and Safety Outreach and Partnerships team for the Americas, driving safety improvements through collaboration with external experts and advocates. Previously leading the Public Policy and Social Impact team at Tumblr, she engaged diverse stakeholders to improve safety on the platform. In 2018, Victoria became a Technology and Democracy fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center, researching the impact of media and digital literacy on online safety and security. Her prior experience includes roles in the Obama Administration at the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Legislative Affairs and the White House Office of Public Engagement.
Ava Smithing is the Director of Advocacy and Operations at the Young People’s Alliance (YPA), a youth-led non-profit focused on leveraging youth perspectives into conversation about policy that affects them, and building consensus among young people on their legislative priorities. At YPA, she worked in the North Carolina state legislature to introduce NC HR 644, a bill focused on preventing algorithms from targeting young people with content and advertisements based on their personal and usage data, and is currently working in U.S. Congress to ensure similarly effective provisions targeting algorithms are included in federal kids safety and data privacy bills alike. Ava has actively voiced her generation’s perspective through unique contributions, including thought leadership, speaking engagements, and most recently, co-planning a demonstration with fellow activists at the recent Senate Judiciary hearing of major tech CEOs. She has engaged with stakeholders at Capitol Hill on the protection of kids online and regularly meets with congressional representatives. Ava is a member of the inaugural cohort of All Tech Is Human affiliates. She lives in Washington, D.C. (by way of Nashville, Tennessee) since graduating from Stevens Institute of Technology in May 2023.
This panel will be moderated by Sandra Khalil from All Tech Is Human.
Panel 2: What is the current state of Trust & Safety?
Panel Description:
Trust and Safety is an ever-evolving industry that impacts many facets of business. In this panel, we will look at the current landscape of online safety, the regulation that is guiding trust and safety practices, and how platforms are thinking about the technology and tooling to support user safety.
READ ABOUT THE PANELISTS
Vaishnavi is the founder and principal of Vyanams Strategies (VYS), a policy consultancy at the intersection of online safety, youth well-being, and policy development. She is an expert in online child safety and privacy as well as age-appropriate design, policy development, and product guidance.
Most recently, Vaishnavi was the head of youth policy at Meta, developing age-appropriate content and product policies across Instagram, Facebook, VR, and messaging services. She previously led Twitter’s video content policies and was the company’s first safety lead in the Asia-Pacific region. She also served as Google’s child safety and privacy lead for the Asia-Pacific region, developing global networks of youth experts and supporting local teams with digital literacy policy programs.
Vaishnavi now advises US and international companies, civil society groups, and policymakers, offering thoughtful and timely counsel on their trust & safety challenges. She is regularly featured as an expert commentator in publications such as NPR, CNN, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Rolling Stone. Vaishnavi is also passionate about workplace equity and advocates for minorities to get a fair shake at every stage of their careers. She holds a BA in Political Economy from UC Berkeley and an LLM in IT & IP Law from the University of Hong Kong.
Chanel Cornett is a Senior Counsel on the Trust & Safety and Privacy teams at Zoom, where she focuses on issues such as online safety, AI, and privacy through regulatory compliance, product policy, and civil society partnerships. Prior to joining Zoom, Chanel worked on criminal justice reform policy at a think tank and for former California Attorney General’s, Xavier Becerra, legal and policy advisory team. She is a graduate of Howard University School of Law and based in Washington D.C.
Dave Byrne is the founder of TrustRaise (trust-raise.com). Expert in navigating the landscape of digital safety and advertising integrity. Deeply committed to creating an ethical and responsible digital ecosystem that prioritizes user needs, and improves industry standards. Passionate about building partnerships with key industry associations and advertising partners; while mitigating risk, and crafting compelling narratives that showcase the power of advertising. Thrives working cross-functionally with external partners & stakeholders, along with internal teams like Legal, Public Policy, Marketing, and Trust & Safety. Passionate storyteller; regularly running storytelling and presentation workshops.
Andrew Zack is the Policy Manager for the Family Online Safety Institute, supporting policy and research work relating to online safety issues, laws, and regulations. He works with federal and state legislatures, relevant federal agencies, and industry leaders to develop and advance policies that promote safe and positive online experience for families.
Andrew joins FOSI after five years in Senator Ed Markey's office, where he worked primarily on education, child welfare, and disability policies. Andrew studied Government and Psychology at the College of William and Mary.
Short Org Presentations by:
Tech Coalition
Katia Potapov serves as the Vice President of Membership Development at the Tech Coalition, an alliance of more than 35 tech companies united in the fight against online child sexual exploitation and abuse. With over two decades of experience in strategic operations, member engagement, and development, she is leading the Coalition’s growth to extend its reach and strengthen industry’s trust and safety capacities. In addition to her professional efforts, Katia is deeply committed to child safety and welfare, an attribute she demonstrates through her leadership roles in youth-focused organizations.
Trust & Safety Foundation
Maia Levy Daniel is a Senior Program Manager at the Trust & Safety Foundation (TSF). She is a tech policy, law, and regulation specialist, and has worked across various sectors in the U.S. and Latin America. Maia has extensive experience leading multi-stakeholder projects and conducting research on issues around platform governance and regulation, artificial intelligence governance, and digital rights. She holds an LL.M. from Harvard Law School, a Master's in Public Policy from Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Argentina, and a Law degree from the same university.
Integrity Institute
Jeff Allen is a former physicist and astronomer who left academia for data science in 2013. Since then, he has worked on multiple sides of the internet information ecosystem: on publishers who are trying to maximize the traffic they get from platforms, on platforms themselves, and on political organizations and campaigns just trying to navigate the online spaces.
While at Facebook, he worked on tackling systemic issues in the public content ecosystems of Facebook and Instagram, developing strategies to ensure that the incentive structure that the platforms created for publishers was in alignment with Facebooks company mission statement.
Jeff is the co-founder and Chief Research Officer for the Integrity Institute. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.
About All Tech Is Human
All Tech Is Human is a non-profit committed to building the world’s largest multistakeholder, multidisciplinary network in Responsible Tech. This allows us to tackle wicked tech & society issues while moving at the speed of tech, leverage the collective intelligence of the community, and diversify the traditional tech pipeline. Together, we work to solve tech & society’s thorniest issues.
Join our working groups on Trust & Safety and also Youth, Tech, & Wellbeing
Read our reports, such as our Responsible Tech Guide and our recent Responsible Tech Org List 2024
Join our Slack community of over 7k members across 88 countries, with numerous individuals focused on creating healthy digital spaces
Read our Responsible Tech Job Board and join our talent pool
Our gatherings draw a broad mix of individuals across civil society, government, industry, and academia. Previous speakers at our gatherings have included Sherry Turkle, Frances Haugen, Tim Wu, Nabiha Syed, Julie Inman Grant, Yael Eisenstat, Kashmir Hill, Meredith Broussard, Douglas Rushkoff, Yoel Roth, Maya Wiley, and many more.