Events

Here are some upcoming events that we think will be of interest to our readers. If you would like to submit an event to be listed here, please contact us.

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Celebrating Designing for Kids’ Well-Being – Case Studies from the 2025 WBxD Fellows

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In this special culminating webinar on May 22, 2025, our incredible cohort of Well-Being by Design (WBxD) Fellows shared how they are designing to support children’s well-being through interactive digital experiences. With products that span a target range from preschool to high school, and representing a spectrum from startups to big tech, from physical toys to virtual reality—these innovators are reimagining what it means to build for kids. Each of our fellows will present a brief case study on how…

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SRCD 2025: Breaking Through Silos

Breaking Through Silos: Apply Your Research across Media, Tech, Homes, and Classrooms Imagine your research becoming a driving force for education transformation. Imagine breaking out of purely academic spaces and attracting the interest of leaders in schools and education systems, media and tech development companies, and social-impact organizations. What would it take to develop a career that brings you into cross-sector collaboration with talented people from diverse perspectives, all of whom are motivated to give more children opportunities to learn…

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ASU+GSV 2025 – ChatECE: Empowering Educators and Families with AI

Step into an inspiring conversation about the promises and risks of AI with the early childhood education (ECE) workforce with the power of AI. Facing mounting challenges like burnout and high turnover, the ECE sector is at a crossroads—and AI offers a transformative path forward. This dynamic session will showcase how AI can reimagine the way educators work, empowering them with tools that lighten administrative burdens and amplify their ability to connect meaningfully with children. Gain actionable insights into how…

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ASU+GSV 2025- Build It Together: Co-Designing Edtech with Children and Educators

What happens when edtech products are co-designed from day one—with children, educators, and schools at the center? This session explores how early-stage design interventions can lead to more engaging, equitable, and effective learning tools. We’ll discuss how LitLab, an AI-powered literacy platform, has partnered with Leanlab Education, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, and school district teams to co-design a product that shows measurable classroom impact. Panelists will share the unique insights each kind of engagement—from children to educators to researchers—can…

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SXSW EDU 2025: AI Tools to Support Literacy & Computational Thinking

AI tools to support literacy & computational thinking  Generative AI is arguably one of the most disruptive forces in the current tech landscape— with undeniable impact in K-12 learning. It has the potential to be an effective tool to personalize learning by curating content and promoting student collaboration. But we must also address important questions about how to integrate AI in safe, equitable, and ethical ways within classrooms. This panel at SXSW EDU will share lessons learned through the creation…

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Digital Media and Kids with Dr. Michael Rich and Dr. Rosemarie Truglio

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center and the West Side YMCA invite you to join us for a book party to celebrate an incredible resource for parents of all children of the digital age: The Mediatrician’s Guide: A Joyful Approach to Raising Healthy, Smart, Kind Kids in a Screen-Saturated World. We are thrilled to host an event featuring three experts in children’s media and health. Dr. Hina Talib, MD, a pediatrician and adolescent media specialist at the Atria Health Institute, will share her observations…

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World Children’s Day: A Global View of Current Practices for Children and Digital Environments

This webinar celebrates children’s rights in the era of AI. It brings together leading experts in the field of Artificial Intelligence and Children’s Rights to discuss the latest advancements, ethical considerations, policy initiatives, practices and future directions with a focus on children’s inclusion. This webinar emphasizes the need for multi-stakeholder discussion and invites experts from academia, industry and policy while a panel of young people will contribute their perspective. This webinar will celebrate participation from the Global South trying to…

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The RITEC Design Toolbox: Supporting Children’s Well-being in Digital Play

We are pleased to invite you to the upcoming launch of the RITEC Design Toolbox (RDT), part of the Responsible Innovation in Technology for Children (RITEC) initiative in partnership between UNICEF and The LEGO Group and supported by The LEGO Foundation. The RDT was developed based on the RITEC research about children’s well-being in digital play, created with over 750 children in 18 countries. The RDT is a set of practical tools for design teams, supporting the integration of the research…

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EdTech Week: “Can You Tell Me How to Get to Sesame Street? Designing EdTech for Impact”

Columbia University, Teachers College Thursday, October 10, 2024 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM Lunch & Learn: “Can You Tell Me How to Get to Sesame Street? Designing EdTech for Impact” Sesame Street has been a successful edtech innovation for more than 50 years because it is both engaging and educationally effective for children and families. Over lunch in an interactive session, panelists who work at and with Sesame Workshop will share how they design for impact. They will discuss how to engage…

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Seeing and Solving Through Multiple Lenses: New Ways to Transform Education

On Wednesday, September 18, New America hosts the biennial summit of the Learning Sciences Exchange (LSX) in Washington, DC.  The Joan Ganz Cooney Center's Senior Director of Research Medha Tare is a former LSX Fellow, and will participate on a panel about co-design with parents and teachers. Registration for the full-day, hybrid event is free. Learn more and register here.

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Applying Principles of Well-being to Digital Design for Kids at Play Make Learn 2024

We are thrilled to be heading to Madison for the Play Make Learn conference from July 17-19, 2024. Please join us for a panel where we will discuss our Well-Being by Design Fellowship, a professional development program for designers and producers of interactive kids’ technology and media to center children's well-being in their products.  Our goal is to develop a supportive ecosystem that encourages tech and media creators to design with children’s best interests in mind, ultimately fostering a safer,…

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2024 Games for Change Festival

We’re so excited for the Games for Change Festival in just a few weeks! This amazing event is back at Parsons in NYC from June 27-28. We can’t wait to talk about the Responsible Innovation in Technology for Children (RITEC) initiative and the forthcoming Design Guide for Business with our colleagues from UNICEF and the LEGO Group. On Friday, June 28, join Shuli Gilutz, Ph.D. for a keynote talk on the Main Stage at 10:00 AM: Designing for Well-being in Digital Play - It's possible!…

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Creating Digital Play for Children’s Well-Being: From Research to Design

The Cooney Center and the NYU Create Lab are organizing an afternoon of learning and play on June 26 at the NYU Create Lab in Brooklyn. We will dive into the findings from new research from the Responsible Innovation in Technology for Children Initiative (RITEC), which looks at how digital design choices impact the well-being of kids, and explore how to apply these insights in a business environment. Shuli Gilutz from UNICEF will introduce the RITEC project and why it is…

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Digital Parenthood Summit

Come join us at the Digital Parenthood Summit (June 4th from 9:30-3 at the Times Center in NYC), for a day of thoughtful conversation about raising the connected generation.  This free event features top parenting and mental health experts, including Dr. Becky Kennedy, Dr. Alfiee Breland-Noble, Dr. Aliza Pressman, and a live podcast with Dr. Lisa Damour. Dive into hot topics like social media and youth mental health, cyberbullying, and phones in schools. We’ll also be joined by producer, entrepreneur…

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Kid-Tested, Evidence-Approved: The Future of EdTech Design at ASU+GSV

Kid-Tested, Evidence-Approved: The Future of EdTech Design Tuesday, April 16 3:50 - 4:30 pm PT   The current EdTech market is full of products that claim to make teaching, learning, and assessment easier for learners and educators. But what if, in addition to helping kids master important concepts more efficiently, digital products made learning truly empowering and engaging by drawing deeply from the science of learning and utilizing rigorous participatory R&D methods to ensure that children (and their grownups) had…

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GDC 2024 – Fair Play Workshop

Harmonizing Multiplayer Experiences Location: Room 209, South Hall Date: Monday, March 18 Time: 9:00 am - 12:00 pm Natasha Miller  (Senior Research Scientist II, Blizzard Entertainment) Kimberly Voll  (CEO, Brace Yourself Games) Weszt Hart  (Head of Player Dynamics, Riot Games) Michael Preston  (Executive Director, Joan Ganz Cooney Center, Sesame Workshop) Sarah Jacobstein  (Project Manager, Joan Ganz Cooney Center, Sesame Workshop) The Cooney Center is delighted to join the Fair Play Alliance at GDC this year to present a workshop as part of the Fair…

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Cultivating Citizenship Through Digital Connections at SXSW 2024

Please join us in Austin for SXSW 2024! March 10, 2024 2:30-3:30 pm | JW Marriott Salon 6 Can we create online spaces that foster positive behaviors and social experiences that teach users the skills they need to create strong and resilient connections that help them thrive? Video games and social media have been at the center of debates about mental health and a myriad of social issues, but not all digital experiences are created equal. We'll talk about how…

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Co-Design for a More Inclusive EdTech Ecosystem at SXSW Edu

March 7, 2024 Austin Convention Center Room 12AB The current edtech market is full of products that claim to fulfill lesson plans and make assessment easier for teachers. But what if, in addition to helping kids master important concepts, digital products could make learning truly impactful, and help diverse students and teachers feel empowered and engaged? We’ll talk about how we can bring kids and teachers into the design process in order to create kid-centered products that students enjoy using.…

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FOSI 2023 Annual Conference: New Frontiers in Online Safety

The FOSI Annual Conference gathers experts in Washington, DC to debate topics such as content moderation, privacy policies and practices, digital wellbeing, and more. This year's program features research around critical issues such as AI, and practical approaches to ethics, safety, and parenting in the online space. Senior Director of Research Medha Tare on a panel moderated by Richard Culatta (ISTE), with Megan Fromm (NAMLE), Matthew Johnson (MediaSmarts), and Gwen Oldham (AT&T) at 1:10 pm: Media, Digital, and Social Emotional…

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Co-designing the Digital Future with Kids, for Kids

What’s the secret to creating digital media products for kids that makes learning engaging and fun? We’ve found that including kids throughout the design process has many benefits: it empowers kids who find that their opinions are valued; designers gain a fresh perspective from the audience they’re creating for; and the product itself is often more impactful as a result. On Wednesday, September 27, the Cooney Center hosted a webinar to discuss the Cooney Center Sandbox with some of our…

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ED Games Expo

The 9th annual ED Games Expo will occur in Washington, DC, at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts REACH on Wednesday, September 20 and Thursday, September 21, 2023. The ED Games Expo is designed to provide an engaging and meaningful experience for children, students, parents and caregivers, educators, and all stakeholders interested in learning about emerging forms of education-related technologies and the government programs that support EdTech innovation and research. There is no cost to attend the…

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More Content to Explore
Publications

From Big Ideas to Big Readers: Experts Guiding Innovations in Literacy Edtech

by Elizabeth Rood, EdD
Initiatives

Here Comes the Fun Challenge

©2025 The Joan Ganz Cooney Center