A global network of people protecting others online, sharing with and learning from each other.

SHIELD connects grassroots organizations, practitioners, and young people already working on the front lines of online safety, then helps that work reach the people and institutions positioned to act on it.

The Network

Nearly 100 members across 24 countries, and a Youth Council giving young people a structured voice.

SHIELD’s network is built through direct relationships, not sign-up forms. Leadership sits with the people closest to each issue, co-designing solutions rather than receiving them from outside.

The Youth Council extends that same model to young people specifically, currently forming its first cohort across seven countries and eight languages.

What the network has built

Two years of convening, from flagship conferences to focused conversations on specific harms.

Flagship conferences

Global Online Safety Conference

2025 and 2026 editions

Mini-conferences

AI Companions: Understanding the Risks and Staying Safe

Therapy Bots & the Future of Mental Health

Youth Voices in Digital Wellbeing

Regional & policy work

Spanish-language series on protecting children online, with experts from across Latin America

EU Working Group for the Code of Practice on Transparency of AI-Generated Content

The knowledge

Voices of SHIELD

Amplifying the voices of community leaders, youth advocates, and experts on the frontlines of digital safety.

Latest Blog Post

two young people sitting on a box, looking at phones

AI Diagnosis Tools: Why Gen Z and Alpha Are Turning to Them

Annika Singh August 12, 2026

One in five young people now turn to AI for mental health advice. This piece asks not whether it’s accurate, but why we reach for it at all.

2026 Conference outputs: Two Theories of Change

Two ways this work gets done, and where each one reaches its limit.

The first works through laws and platform accountability, producing evidence that governments and companies can act on. It has built real infrastructure, but it needs harm to already be visible and measurable before those larger bodies can respond.

The second is built by the people working directly in the communities affected, shaped by the specific conditions of the specific people and places they know. It produces solutions that work where the harm is actually happening, but it operates almost entirely without the funding or recognition the first approach gets.

Institutional Leverage

Shapes the field’s standards, funding flows, and definition of what counts as evidence.

Grassroots Practice

Operates with very limited resources, low recognition, and without sophisticated infrastructure.

Across sessions spanning different regions and types of harm, four learnings kept surfacing.

Evidence of safety is not the same as safety.

Systems built to demonstrate compliance can succeed completely on their own terms while leaving the people they’re meant to protect no safer.

Harm originates below the layer where responses concentrate.

Responses concentrate where harm is easiest to see, not where it starts. Harm begins earlier, in design decisions and community contexts systems were never built to notice.

Co-design is a quality control mechanism, not a participation practice.

A system built without the people it serves is calibrated to assumptions rather than reality, and that gap is where harm falls through.

Protection and preparation are different investments, and both are necessary.

Removing a threat doesn’t build the capacity to navigate the next one, and resilience can’t be treated as optional.

Support the Leaders Already Solving This

You’ve probably heard plenty of people talking about online safety problems. SHIELD works differently. We support the people already solving them.

Right now:

Community organizers are creating child protection frameworks that work in their contexts; understanding local vulnerabilities and building trust networks that outsiders miss
Across Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa, worker-led organizations are advocating for mental health support and fair treatment of content moderators and data workers: the invisible architects of AI systems
From India to the United States, privacy advocates and educators are translating complex tech policy into practical guidance that helps real families make informed decisions about their data.
Across the globe, survivor support organizations are providing expert crisis response to victims of cybercrime and technology-facilitated violence
Across continents, youth leaders are teaching their peers about digital wellbeing, AI literacy, and STEM equity because they understand how their generation experiences technology

These leaders have solutions. What they need is support, connection, and amplification.

Your donation doesn’t fund SHIELD to ‘fix’ online safety for communities. It funds SHIELD to:

Connect leaders across six continents so a solution developed in Kenya can inform work in India, and research from Australia can strengthen advocacy in Europe
Strengthen effective initiatives so they can move from serving dozens of families to reaching thousands or from one region to an entire continent
Amplify voices from underrepresented regions in global tech conversations. Help ensure decisions about AI, privacy, and platform safety include expertise from Africa, Asia, and communities typically excluded

Donate Now

What Our Members Say

"When we listen deeply and collaborate across cultures, ages, and roles, we make the most meaningful change. We truly are stronger together. Only by sharing ideas and coming together can we find the answers we seek to the problems we're seeing in the AI-filled online world."

Angeline CorvagliaExecutive Director, SHIELD

"One thing that's been missing in Tech is youth voices. Yes, there are hackathons and youth summits, but there's not space for the youth to continually engage with parents, teachers, researchers, and policy makers. SHIELD is taking concrete steps to change that. We believe that technology should be co-created with, not just for, young people."

John CavanaughSHIELD Member & Director, Plunk Foundation

"SHIELD does a great job of getting a diverse group of speakers from all over the world."

Genevieve BartuskiSHIELD member & Founder, Bartuski Privacy Consulting

"As the tech world moves fast, breaking things, as humans in the loop we must choose to slow down and gather as a community to learn to protect what matters most online – each other. We're proud to be doing that work through SHIELD."

Confidence OseinSHIELD Member & Founder, Internet Safe Kids Africa

"If you want to hear from the people in the online safety or online harms space, if you want to hear from the people actually having to see and do it and what they're going through, come and join us at SHIELD. We're not going to turn you away. It's open to everybody."

Andrew BriercliffeSHIELD Member & Online Harms Consultant

"Most tech conferences are about the tech. They’re not about the human in the loop and the human experience of interacting with the tech in this shared digital world. The SHIELD Global Online Safety Conference is much needed right now to discuss what it means to responsibly create, interact with, and protect children as new technologies emerge. It’s really refreshing to hear the humanity in the room instead of putting the tools at the forefront, even tools that can be useful."

Tiffany WycoffSHIELD Member & Founder, Generation Remix

"Unfolding SHIELD—symbolising our mission to PROTECT. At SHIELD, we aim to unite voices from around the world under one goal: SAFETY. If you're passionate about digital safety for yourself and those around you, SHIELD is here to make it happen."

Pratishtha AroraSHIELD Member & CEO, Social Media Matters