From left to right: Attorney General Patrick Lynch, Victoria Grand, Emily Hancock, Ed Palmieri, Marsali Hancock, and Tanya Byron.

Professor Tanya Byron

Tanya Byron is an expert in the field of online safety. In the space of a few years, Byron has transformed the debate around family online safety, not only in the UK, but internationally. As a psychologist, writer and media personality in the UK, Tanya Byron is known for her role as the leader of the Byron Review, an independent review commissioned by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, supported by the UK’s Department for Children, Schools, and Families, and the Department for Culture, Media, and Sport. The report took an in-depth look at the potentially harmful effects of both the Internet and video games on children and brought to the fore the need for attention on new and emerging technologies and their effects on children. Throughout her career she has shown her passion for protecting children at the same time as allowing them to grow. She co-authored a book based on her Little Angels television show to help parents bring out the best behavior in their children, and two other books on child development and parenting.

Victoria Grand, Head of Communications and Community Policy, YouTube 

Victoria Grand led a cross-functional team to develop Google and YouTube’s first Family Safety Centers. These sites feature tips, videos, and safety resources from leading third party organizations on issues like cyberbulling and privacy. Grand has been a creative, tireless advocate for policy and product innovations that give parents greater confidence and control over their teenagers’ experiences on YouTube’s video-sharing site. In the last year, Victoria guided the YouTube team in the creation of a new Safety Center with tips, videos, and help on cyberbullying, suicide prevention, and other topics of particular interest to teens. Together with her team, she created partnerships with a range of child safety and community organizations to acquire content for the Safety Center, which receives over 250,000 visits a month.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, 20th District of Florida, U.S. Congress

As one of only a handful of mothers with young children serving in Congress, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz understands that today’s children are growing up in an online world where the Internet and the latest technologies provide children with wonderful opportunities to learn in ways previous generations never had. But she also knows these technologies present risks to a child’s safety that earlier generations never had to consider. Throughout her time in Congress, Rep. Wasserman Schultz has consistently made protecting children her highest priority and a true focus of her work. Recently she introduced the AWARE Act with the intention of underscoring and promoting Internet safety education and cybercrime prevention initiatives. And, recognizing that child online safety is best achieved when the facets of child education, technology tools and law enforcement efforts are combined, Rep. Wasserman Schultz has used her position to be a real friend, committed supporter and true catalyst within the entire community of those working on Internet safety and digital literacy initiatives. For her demonstrated leadership in child online safety, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz rightly deserves recognition by the Family Online Safety Institute.

Emily Hancock, Senior Legal Director, Yahoo!

Emily Hancock is a key leader of the child safety team at Yahoo!. She has invested significant time and efforts into creating an industry leading training program educating law enforcement entities, including federal and state law enforcement, State Attorney Generals and staff. Hancock cares very passionately about about protecting children online, and as a result, she takes a very proactive approach within Yahoo! helping to make changes to products, services, policies and tools whenever possible to achieve that end. She has been instrumental in the ongoing development and improvement of Yahoo’s technology for identifying, removing and reporting child pornography. Hancock co-authored an article about child safety for the Association of Corporate Counsel’s magazine and acts as Yahoo’s representative to the Financial Coalition Against Child Pornography.

Marsali Hancock, President, Internet Keep Safe Coalition

As a leader in the online safety space, Marsali Hancock has been working with kids, parents, law enforcement, schools and policymakers to make the Internet safer for families. She is not only a leader in the United States, but a guiding force around the world, and has been participating in a taks force that is helping Arab nations develop an online safety portal. Hancock has been an innovative and creative contributor to promoting educational initiatives and has been a key component to keeping kids safe online. Hancock helped develop iKeepSafe’s FauxPaw Internet Safety curriculum that is central to a nationwide Internet safety campaign with pilot programs in Australia, China, and India and stories in multiple languages. Hancock works closely with industry players including corporate partnerships with Symantec, Adobe, AOL, AT&T, Bearing Point, Comcast, Dell, Disney, ENA, Intel, NewsCorp, Oracle, Target and Yahoo! 

Patrick Lynch, Attorney General, Rhode Island

During his presidency of the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG), Attorney General Lynch made online safety the center piece of his tenure, declaring 2008 as “The Year of the Child: Protecting and Empowering the Next Generation.” AG Lynch followed through on his commitment to our children by holding a national summit on online safety in Philadelphia in May, which brought a number of Generals together with the nation’s top online safety experts to discuss tools and practices they can use to keep children safe online. Leveraging a software program that he learned about during his “Year of the Child” NAAG Presidential Initiative he worked with the Rhode Island State Police to snare eleven people on child pornography charges. 

Rob McKenna, Attorney General, Washington State

Attorney General Rob McKenna is a leader on online safety issues and works hard to keep Washington state families safer online. In 2007, General McKenna formed the Washington Youth Internet Safety Taskforce, a coalition of law enforcement, child advocacy organizations, academic experts, state and local governments, technology firms and associations, and concerned citizens to make the use of the Internet and related technologies safer for children. General McKenna and the Washington state Superintendent of Public Instruction partnered with Web Wise Kids and the Entertainment Software Association Foundation to bring an innovative youth Internet safety program to 70 Washington schools. The program uses video games to teach students how to protect themselves from online predators, cyberbullies and scammers. In the past year, General McKenna led efforts to close a loophole shielding users of online child pornography from prosecution, and he was successful in advocating for the first digital crime lab for Washington state law enforcement. 

Harriet Novet, Regional Vice President, Public Affairs, Time Warner Cable

Harriet Novet directs strategy and tactics in government relations, communications and philanthropy at Time Warner Cable. In 2007, Harriet Novet and her team partnered with Cyber Angels, a cyber-safety organization, and created specific resources, including a bi-lingual, downloadable guide to Internet safety and a public service announcement to generate awareness of the resources available to parents. Over 5,000 hardcopies of the Cyber Safety Guide were distributed at Time Warner Cable stores. In 2008, under Harriet Novet’s leadership, Time Warner Cable joined with local leaders and law enforcement officials to sponsor the first-ever Internet Safety Awareness Day at Shea Stadium, (then) home of the New York Mets. Ms. Novet spearheaded the dissemination of information to promote a safe online experience to over 50,000 baseball fans in attendance at the game. Under the direction of Ms. Novet, 25,000 specially designed kid-friendly, Internet safety pledge baseball cards were distributed to attendees, along with 8,000 Time Warner Cable Cyber Safety Guides and information from Project Safe Childhood.

Edward Palmieri, Deputy Chief Privacy Officer and Director of Sprint Nextel Legal Department’s Office of Privacy, Sprint

Ed Palmieri leads a team of attorneys and program managers that monitor federal and state privacy laws and industry best practices, and he regularly advises Sprint’s business units on privacy issues. Palmieri is passionate about promoting the need for Internet safety education and has championed this issue at Spint. Since being named to the board of the Family Online Safety Institute, Palmieri has been instrumental in raising awareness about the importance of parental controls and Internet safety education for youth. He has spoken at numerous events to promote Sprint’s initiatives designed to keep families safe online. Palmieri ensures that today’s youth are equipped with the tools and resources they need to make safe, informed, educated decisions when they are online via computers.