OUR PARTICIPANTS
KRISTIN BRIDE
“I’m doing this work so that no other parent has to suffer losing a child the way I did.”
In 2020 Kristin lost her son Carson. He took his life after he had been viciously cyber-bullied through anonymous apps on Snapchat. Carson was 16. In the wake of unimaginable loss, Kristin transformed her grief into action.
In 2021, she co-founded the Online Harms Prevention Workgroup. She also filed a national class action lawsuit against anonymous apps Yolo and LMK, forcing Snapchat to immediately remove these apps from its platform.
In 2023, Kristin testified before Congress about the harmful designs used by tech platforms to addict our children. She continues to be a leading voice for social media reform.
TRISHA PRABHU
“What if we could stop cyberbullying at the source, and help the bully make better choices?”
Trisha Prabhu is a 23-year-old Indian-American innovator, social entrepreneur, and global advocate. She is the inventor of ReThink, a patented technology and an effective way to detect and stop online hate.
Trisha’s achievements have been recognized by President Obama, Google, Shark Tank, TED, and many others. Since its inception, ReThink has been adopted in hundreds of communities around the world.
Trisha believes that technology can be employed to bring kindness and mutual understanding into our online interactions. She is training the next generation of ReThinkers through her nonprofit ReThink Citizens.
THE OFFLINE CLUB
“Our phones are taking too much of our valuable time, and we are not really connecting with people anymore.”
The Offline Club was founded in Amsterdam in 2023 by Jordy van Bennekom, Valentijn Klok and Ilya Kneppelhout.
Through events and hangouts, they offer a space where people can disconnect from their digital devices and reconnect with themselves and each other.
Local phone free hangouts and events quickly turned into a global movement, as the Offline Club went viral – ironically over Instagram!
You can find out more about local Offline Clubs and upcoming events through their website.
OUR EXPERTS
Tristan is Co-Founder of the Center for Humane Technology (CHT), a nonprofit organization whose mission is to align technology with humanity’s best interests. Tristan was featured in the two-time Emmy-winning Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma.
Frances Haugen is a leading advocate for accountability & transparency in social media, and the founder of Beyond The Screen. She is known as the Facebook Whistleblower, after disclosing tens of thousands of Facebook's internal documents in 2021.
Sherry Turkle is a Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT, and the founding director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self. Her groundbreaking work explores how we remake ourselves in the mirror of our machines.
Dr. Vivek H. Murthy served as the 19th and 21st surgeon general of the United States from 2015 to 2017 and again from 2021 to 2025, under Presidents Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden. Murthy increasingly expressed concern about the impact of social media on young users' mental health.
Cal is an MIT-trained computer science professor at Georgetown University who also writes about the intersections of technology, work, and the quest to find depth in an increasingly distracted world.
Laura Marquez-Garrett is an Attorney at the Social Media Victims Law Center, which works to hold social media companies legally accountable for the harm they inflict on vulnerable users.
Tobias is a designer, writer, and technologist. He studies technology’s influence on moral emotions, media, and civil consensus. His first book, Outrage Machine was recently published by Hachette.
Kevin McCaskill is an educational leader, career and technical education advocate, workforce champion, and a member of the TPZ Board of Directors. He stepped into the role of Principal of Brockton High School in January 2023, during a time of unrest within the school; he has been working to strengthen the school culture and systems to ensure safe, meaningful experiences for all the students and staff.
Joni Siani is a Media and Communications scholar, and Digital Socialization expert. Her acclaimed work on the shaping effects of digital socialization is presented in the award winning documentary Celling Your Soul, which was featured at the American Psychological Association conference in 2018.
Eric M. Baum is a co-founding and co-managing partner of Eisenberg & Baum, LLP, where he is the head of the firm’s Litigation Practice Group. Mr. Baum has extensive experience litigating sexual harassment and discrimination claims. He has conducted hundreds of trials, mediations and arbitrations.
Matt is a long time teacher in Northern Virginia. Together with Joe Clement, he is the coauthor of the book Screen Schooled: Two Veteran Teachers Expose how Technology Overuse is Making Our Kids Dumber.
Adam Alter is a Professor of Marketing at New York University’s Stern School of Business. His 2017 New York Times bestselling book “Irresistible” explores contemporary behavioral addictions, from incessant smart phone use, to video game playing and compulsive online shopping.
Josh Golin is Executive Director of Fairplay, the leading independent watchdog of the children's media and marketing industries. Fairplay holds companies accountable for their harmful marketing and platform design choices, and advocates for policies that both protect children when they are online and help young people get the offline time they need to thrive.