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Larry Magid

CEO, ConnectSafely.org & founder SafeKids.com
On-Air technology analyst, CBS News
Syndicated columnist, San Jose Mercury News & Forbes blogger
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Larry Magid is president and CEO of ConnectSafely.org and founder of SafeKids.com. He also serves as on-air technology analyst for CBS News and writes for the San Jose Mercury News, Forbes, Huffington Post and other publications.

In addition to being CEO of ConnectSafely.org, Magid founded and operates two popular Internet safety sites: SafeKids.com and SafeTeens.com.

He has written several Internet safety guides including Child Safety on the Information Highway and Teen Safety on the Information Highway for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and has co-authored numerous Parents’ guides for ConnectSafely.

He served on the Obama administration’s Online Safety & Technology Working Group where he chaired the education sub-committee and wrote the education section of the report to Congress. He was also on the Internet Safety Technical Task Force, formed by 49 state attorneys general and based at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

He is on the advisory boards of the Internet Education Foundation, Family Online Safety Institute, PBS Kids and the Markulla Center for Applied Ethics Digital Ethics as well as safety advisory boards for Facebook, Comcast, Google and Snapchat.

 

His technology reports can be heard daily on CBS News and CBS affiliates throughout the U.S., including a daily tech segments for CBS Radio News and KCBS radio in San Francisco. He’s a regular contributor to BBC World Service, BBC Today Programme and an occasional guest on National Public Radio. He is often called upon for commentary by CBS television news, CNN and Fox News, BBC, and Al Jazeera and has appeared on the all of the major network evening and morning news programs. He has also been a frequent contributor to the New York Times and was, for 19 years, a syndicated columnist for the Los Angeles Times.

 

Larry is author or co-author of nine books including the best-selling Little PC Book along with Cruising Online: Larry Magid’s Guide to the New Digital Highways, The Fully Powered PC, Electronic Link, MySpace Unraveled and Mini-Manual for a Free University.  From 1983 to 1988 he was co-founder and Executive Vice President of Know-How, one of the world’s first computer training companies. In 1982 he was editor of PC Magazine and in 1981 he wrote one of the manuals for IBM’s first personal computers. He’s also worked as a printer, car washer, restaurant delivery person and a dishwasher.

In 1993, in an effort to save Polly Klass, Magid was the first person to post an image of a missing child online, which led to his work with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, where he now serves on its board of directors.

He has won awards from the Smithsonian Institution, National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and Family Online Safety Institute for his Internet safety work and from the Software Publisher’s Association and Peninsula Press Association for his journalism work.​

Larry has a doctorate of education from the University of Massachusetts and a bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley. He has taught at the University of Massachusetts and Boston University. He served as Director of the Student Center for Educational Research at UMASS/Amherst and as Director of the Center for Educational Reform. 

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