Students and industry come together to celebrate student voice and digital leadership in social media.
On Monday, September 18, 2017, Twitter will host the first annual #Digital4Good event at their San Francisco headquarters and it will be live-streamed to a global audience. #Digital4Good will be a major gathering of highly-engaged students, industry, and educators that are focused on empowering positive tech and media use–digital for good. This exciting event will celebrate student voice and digital leadership, featuring a fast-paced mix of presentations, panels, videos, and the first ever #Digital4Good awards. Unlike typical youth recognition, the #Digital4Good awards are nominated by students for students.
#Digital4Good is being spearheaded by #ICANHELP, a non-profit organization committed to empowering students to play an active role in improving the online environment. The event on
September 18th is #ICANHELP’s first national event, and is meant to raise awareness of the power of student voice for social good in social media. Co-founder Kim Karr explains that, “#ICANHELP has worked with thousands of students to be the digital change they want to see. This is an unprecedented opportunity to honor students, showcase the power of student voice and empower even more students to be a positive influence online.”
In addition to bringing students together to share their stories, #ICANHELP is thrilled to be offering the first #Digital4Good awards. “We are soliciting nominations for the awards, which we’ll present at the event,” says co-founder Matt Soeth. “Our goal is to recognize and grow awareness of the great work students and schools are doing, as well as show that there is so much good happening in social media and bring it to light. The focus is always too much on the negative, and we have some amazing youth out there making a difference. We want students to inspire students to be digital leaders.”
The form to nominate students for the first annual #Digital4Good awards can be found at: bit.ly/Digital4GoodAwards.
By bringing together a broad range of students, educators, and industry people, the #Digital4Good event on September 18 represents a student-centered, student-led approach to solving some of the complicated issues and social problems in social tech use – students as part of the solution, not the problem! It is sure to raise awareness, offer real-world best practices, and celebrate the many examples of students using digital for good.
More information can be found at icanhelpdeletenegativity.org.
