Happy New Year!

new year 2017 digitalHappy New Year! 

We at DigCitUtah are excited to welcome the new year! 2016 was filled with opportunities to connect, learn, and expand our collaborative efforts. We have been overwhelmed (in a good way!) with the number of individuals and organizations who truly care about our youth and their lives online. 

The growing positive Digital Citizenship (DigCit) movement excites us, as well as the increase in attention around the importance of Media Literacy as a foundation for positive DigCit. We know 2017 is going to be a critical year for the growth of both of these movements. 

DigCitUtah was created to support implementation of the first Digital Citizenship bill in the United States, HB213, which passed in 2015. EPIK Deliberate Digital, the non-profit that funds DigCitUtah, is devoted to facilitating cross-sector collaboration around issues related to kids and technology. We focus heavily on fostering collaboration around positive, deliberate uses of technology — because while we should never stop talking about the risks and dangers of online engagement, the realm of possibilities of working with youth to help them use technology for good is still largely untapped. Helping unleash that potential is a significant part of EPIK’s mission for 2017. 

EPIK has no curriculum, products, or other content that we promote. Our funding is used to bring stakeholders together and to use digital technologies to build community that can help sustain collaborative relationships the world over. 

We are excited to announce that this year, EPIK is hosting the national/international DigCitSummit, which will take place in Utah this fall. The first Summit was held in Connecticut in the fall of 2015, and last year’s Summit was at Twitter Headquarters in San Francisco. [Click here for presentations from the 2016 Summit.]

This year, we are also working with national leaders to create an online home for the rapidly growing DigCit community. 

We will continue to break down walls and bring sectors together to expand our thinking. Youth are a huge piece of the puzzle and we encourage you to ask youth more questions about their online lives and goals, and to engage them in brainstorming and executing ways to use tech for good — to help them truly be good Digital Citizens. 

If you are interested in learning more about either the Summit or the collaborative community-building work, please let us know. 

Enjoy this wonderful new year! 

Follow us on Twitter @digcitutah.

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