Internet safety expert Anne Collier and award-winning K-12 educator Matt Soeth, together with leading digital safety expert Joi Podgorny, piloted the US’s first school-serving Internet helpdesk during the US’s 2015-’16 school year.
Anne Collier, Helpline founder; executive director, The Net Safety Collaborative
Anne Collier, executive director of The Net Safety Collaborative (TNSC), started developing the Social Media Helpline in 2013. She founded TNSC’s predecessor, NetFamilyNews.org, in 1999. For nearly 10 years, she was co-director of ConnectSafely.org, which she co-founded with tech journalist Larry Magid in 2005. Anne serves on the Trust & Safety advisory boards of Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, YouTube and Paris-based Yubo. She has served on three national task forces on youth and Internet safety, including as co-chair of the Obama administration’s Online Safety & Technology Working Group, which delivered its report to Congress in June 2010; the Aspen Institute Task Force for Learning & the Internet of 2013-’14; and the Harvard Berkman Center’s Internet Safety Technical Task Force of 2008. Books she has contributed to include Bullying: Perspectives, Practice and Insights (Council of Europe Publishing, 2017), Media and the Well-Being of Children and Adolescents (Oxford Press, 2014) and Cyberbullying Prevention and Response: Expert Perspectives (Routledge, 2011). She co-authored the first parents’ guide to teen social networking MySpace Unraveled (Peachpit Press, 2006) and a number of social media guides for parents with Larry Magid, now CEO of ConnectSafely. Her 2016 TEDxGeneva talk at the ITU’s World Summit of the Information Society was entitled “The Heart of Digital Citizenship.” She holds B.A. and M.A. degrees and lives with her family in Salt Lake City. Her full bio is here.
Helpline pilot co-creator Matt Soeth, educator and #ICANHELP co-founder
An educator for 15 years, Matt Soeth was, at the time of the helpline’s pilot, co-founder of #ICANHELP, a California-based nonprofit organization that teaches students, educators and parents about responsible online behavior and how to delete online negativity. He speaks widely on digital leadership and conducts training for both students and educators. Before taking up his role as manager of the helpline during 2015-’16, Matt was a high school tech coordinator and student leadership teacher in northern California and served as the Technology Coordinator for the California Association of Directors of Activities (CADA), developing technology curriculum for activity directors in California and across the United States. For his #ICANHELP public service work, Matt was recognized by the Washington, D.C.-based Family Online Safety Institute for creating a safer internet for high school and middle school students. He has also been recognized with the Western Region Earl Reum Award for outstanding professional development for leadership teachers as well as Teacher of the Year in central California for Phi Delta Kappa (PDK) a professional educators association. Matt holds B.A. and M.A. degrees and lives with his family in Lodi, California.
Joi Podgorny, acting COO, The Net Safety Collaborative
Joi Podgorny helps organizations with their multi-platform digital strategies and develops and implements strategies in the areas of online privacy/safety, production, marketing and youth interactive research. She has spent the last two decades working in all facets of the digital world, from development and production to – more recently – leading international support, moderation, community and social teams. Joi assists organizations in understanding what they need to do to scale their infrastructures and processes to accommodate the growth they desire, while maintaining a strong sense of community balancing safety and diversity both internally and in the product. At companies serving young people, Joi has developed procedures and policies that protect them from negative outside influences and, sometimes, themselves and each other. From chat rooms and forums to video games and interactive campaigns, she ensures compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy and Protection Act and other international privacy laws and often speaks at trade conferences as an expert in practical applications of these laws. She has worked with Showtime, NFL, PBS Kids, The Wharton School, National Geographic Animal Jam, Moshi Monsters, Chuggington, Highlights for Children and many other companies providing online community.
