Our Motivation and Mission
The impact of digital childhood is profound. While the benefits are many, and well documented, so are the challenges. Sedentary screen-time, exposure to age-inappropriate content, cyberbullying, trolling and grooming – these are common, almost everyday experiences, for many vulnerable children in the online space.
Every child has the right to learn the skills to enter digital-life as well-protected and as safe as possible. And that’s the DiGii Social mission. We’re empowering children in their formative pre-teen years with the knowledge and skills to look after themselves and others online. It’s a big mission – but one so vital that lives are depending on it.
We invite you to join us and to be a force for change, empowerment and digital-education of all our young people because they, and we, deserve nothing less.
Leadership Team
Ambassadors Team
Awards & Industry Recognition
Claire Orange
Director & Co-Founder
Hi, I’m Claire and I’m so pleased that you’re here, finding out more about digital-life protection for children. As a therapist of 27 years and a mum of 4 young men, I have seen firsthand the devastation caused by poor digital choices, too much screen-time, cyberbullying, trolling and grooming of young people online. I am driven to be part of the solution with our incredible innovation, DiGii Social, that’s all-locations-accessible, fun and contemporary digital-life education for pre-teen children.
Improving the wellbeing of children and their families is my life’s purpose. I appear weekly as Channel 9’s resident wellbeing expert and regularly appear on screens and radios across Australia. I am a proud Ambassador for R U OK? and the Valuing Children Initiative.
Doug Orange
Technical Lead & Co-Founder
Hi, I’m Doug. As the Technical Lead, I provide technical leadership and decision making for the DiGii Social software platform and work closely with the development team.
I have spent 27 years working in Information Technology in a number of roles across industries nationally and internationally. My career has covered many aspects of IT service provision including software development, solution architecture, mobile application development and deployment and cloud solution architecture.
As Claire and I raise our 4 sons, we have come to understand just how much they know – and just how little we know as parents raising digital natives – despite our backgrounds. We’re dedicated to combining our unique skillsets to help every child, parent and teacher be ready and prepared for digital life.
Steven Rushforth
General Manager
Steven leads the operation, sales and marketing at DiGii Social.
Steven spent 25 years in the Government education system including 10 years as a Principal in a range of schools in Perth, regional WA, the NT and England as well as time in two regional Offices as an educational consultant.
In 2008 he left education to take up a role as General Manager of a private investment company and got involved with The Fathering Project as a volunteer presenter. He joined The Fathering Project full time as the WA Schools Manager late in 2018.
Dads’ consistently expressed raising digital citizens and the impact of social media as the single biggest challenges of parenting.
Steven is combining his experiences in the pursuit of digital-education for all our young people.
Married for 30 years, he has two gorgeous adult children.
Timothy Orange
Creative Lead
Timothy is a talented graphic designer. He has worked on a range of designs for many corporates and enjoys the challenge of communicating their unique message through his design work. He’s dedicated to the DiGii Social mission to educate young people in their formative years.
Leon Nancarrow
Lead Media Producer
Leon has worked from local news to documentaries to freelance animation. He is passionate about educating through the medium of video, and as a young person himself, believes in setting up the next generation in a safe online environment.
Maggie Dent
DiGii Social Ambassador
Commonly known as the ‘queen of common sense’, Maggie Dent has become one of Australia’s favourite parenting authors and educators, with a particular interest in the early years, adolescence and resilience. Maggie is the author of six major books, including the bestselling 2018 release Mothering Our Boys and her 2020 release From Boys to Men. She hosts the ABC podcast, Parental As Anything. Maggie is a dedicated advocate to quietly changing lives in our families and communities. She is the mother of four sons and a very grateful grandmother.
Social media has the capacity to escalate an individual’s potential or to crush it completely. Making poor choices can impact others and research has shown this personal pain can create long term mental health challenges. DiGii teaches our pre-adolescents how to be capable, responsible digital citizens and I believe it will quite simply save precious lives. Every primary school needs DiGii to be available for their students to prepare them to be caring responsible digital citizens.
DiGii Social Ambassador
Ashlee Harrison is the 2016 Young Western Australian of the Year. She was recognised for her role as the CEO & Founder of mental health charity; zero2hero Inc. Over the past 10 years, zero2hero has become widely recognised and respected for their programs and work in the youth mental health and suicide prevention space.
Today, Ashlee leads a team of 6 staff and hundreds of volunteers to impact more than 22,000 young West Australian’s from more than 100 WA High Schools every year.
Social media has benefited my life and my business in many ways, however it has also caused many issues for me and my friends. I am fortunate that social media did not exist in its current form when I was young, therefore I am incredibly glad that a platform like DiGii is available for young people today and eventually my daughters. Learning first-hand how to use social media is crucial when supporting young people’s mental health and wellbeing.
Rosanna Blake
Education Consultant
Hi, I’m Rosanna and I’m absolutely delighted to be a part of this incredible initiative. I moved to Australia 5 years ago from the UK where I was a Primary School Teacher for 7 years. Since arriving in Australia, I have worked as an Education Assistant before further expanding our family. As a mum of 3 beautiful children, they are central to everything I do.
Educating children on the digital world is truly one of the most relevant aspects of the modern curriculum.
The online world presents so many opportunities for our children and future generations, but with the opportunities that this ever-expanding world offers, comes risks and dangers.
I’m truly passionate about working on a project that I know will make a huge difference to our children; giving them the tools and knowledge they need to navigate the digital world safely with courage, confidence and kindness.
