Ava Smithing

Ava Smithing is a founding partner at The Attention Studio, where she directs systems and influence and builds political strategy to hold Big Tech accountable. She is also building the attention sphere, a personal portal to the best of the real world and the best of the internet, designed to support community organizing and create an off-ramp from social media. Ava has worked on tech policy across branches of the federal government. During her time as the first full-time employee and Advocacy Director of the Young People's Alliance, she testified before Congress on children's online safety and privacy legislation and built the organization's federal presence, establishing it as an influential force in the youth online safety and privacy space. Ava is a Youth Fellow at McGill University's Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy, where she conducts cross-jurisdictional policy research and hosts Left to Their Own Devices, a Torono star podcast investigating Big Tech's impact on GenZ through lived experience storytelling and expert research.