Digital Futures: From Risk to Response

5Rights Foundation on key routes towards positive change in the digital world and the barriers to their meaningful development and implementation.

Channel 4 on the evolving digital landscape from the perspective of public media, and their insights on how young people navigate identity, truth, and information.

Public First on the impact of online conspiracies on adolescence and society, and what can be done to create spaces for young people to question, discuss, and make sense of complex online realities.

The John Wallis Academy, Ashford on smartphones in school, their impact on learning and social dynamics, and what student feedback and new policy approaches can teach about routes forward for schools.

Coram Life Education on broader trajectories of social and technological change from the perspective of the education sector, and where our current moment sits in these discursive and historical narratives.

Colette Collins-Walsh is Head of UK Affairs at 5Rights Foundation, a charity whose mission is to build the digital world children and young people deserve. In the UK, 5Rights developed and made the case for the Age Appropriate Design Code, which has driven the biggest tech design changes since GDPR, and successfully campaigned for ground-breaking protections for children in the Online Safety Act. Most recently 5Rights launched its Children and AI Design Code, a code of conduct to support those who build and deploy AI systems to identify, understand and mitigate risks to children by design and default. Colette’s background is in political communications and children’s and education policy.

Jan Forshaw is Head of Education at Coram Life Education, the largest children’s charity provider of children’s health and wellbeing in the UK. She oversees the efficacy and quality of CLE’s educational programmes and most recently she has led their work relating to children’s online safety and behaviours, building networks across multiple stakeholders and ensuring an evidence-based approach to inform the development of educational programmes and support for children, parents and schools.

Joe Hall is a Senior Research Executive at Channel 4, specialising in cultural and strategic insight. He recently helped to deliver Channel 4’s groundbreaking study, Gen Z: Trends, Truth & Trust – delving into the lives of young people in the UK today, as well as Mirror On Masculinities – a guide for brands to meaningfully connect with young men in content and advertising.

Michael Kane is a Policy Manager in Public First’s Education Practice. At Public First, he works directly on the Commission for Countering Conspiracies in Schools working across policy, advocacy, research and communications. Before joining Public First, Michael worked in Policy and Public Affairs for a school attendance charity and worked for a political monitoring company, working with clients from across the education and skills sector.

Shaneila Saeed, Head of Education at Ukie (The Association for UK Interactive Entertainment) and Director of Digital Schoolhouse

Damian McBeath is a respected education leader with over 20 years’ experience driving school improvement. Damian is Principal of The John Wallis Church of England Academy, he is leading transformative changes, including a nationally recognised smartphone-free initiative discussed in Parliament. He’s an educational author, serves on Benenden School Council, and judges the ISOTY awards. As Ark Schools’ Regional Director, he oversaw 11 academies, 6 achieving “Outstanding” Ofsted ratings. As Founding Principal of Ark Conway, it was ranked the UK’s top Primary for 4 years. His leadership has been nationally recognised, with invitations to 10 Downing Street, Parliament and praise from former Secretaries of State Michael Gove and Nicky Morgan.

Sonia Livingstone OBE FBA, Professor, Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science. Sonia has published 21 books on media audiences, children and young people’s risks and opportunities, media literacy and rights in the digital environment. Since founding the EC-funded “EU Kids Online” research network, and Global Kids Online (with UNICEF), she has advised the European Commission, European Parliament, Council of Europe UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, OECD, ITU, UNICEF and UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. She leads the Digital Futures for Children centre at LSE with 5Rights Foundation.