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The overall program mission is to help parents who are new to computing and the Internet gain an understanding of the basics needed to manage these resources in their homes. From the beginning, when Mark and Ralph started their PC Dads volunteer workshops for parents in the Portland, Ore., area, cyber safety has been the most important and requested topic.

Today, two elements comprise the ongoing PC Parents program. First, the current PC Parents program managers, Mark Ivey and Elizabeth Kemper, provide valuable consumer information / education via TV and radio appearances, a special column on iVillage.com, and syndicated newspaper print articles at a national level. Second, a new PC Parents Volunteer Program has been established to enable Intel employees to conduct educational workshops in their site communities, leveraging the cyber safety materials and other topics developed by the PC Parents program managers. The first pilot PC Parents Volunteer Program is currently underway at Intel's Chandler, Ariz., site. Expansion into most of the major North American Intel sites is planned for 2000.

• Mark Ivey and Ralph Bond, Intel's PC Dads, began conducting free, educational workshops aimed at parents in the Portland, Ore., area more than three years ago on a volunteer basis. These early workshops, conducted at schools and Boys and Girls Clubs, were designed to help non-technical parents understand the basics of the Internet, with a special emphasis on tips for protecting children from adult, hate, and violent content.
• About three years ago, the PC Dads' approach to making technology easy to understand, and their focus on cyber safety, quickly caught the attention of the local Oregon media and then several national media shows including the "On Computers" radio show, "Connected with Gina Smith" (ABC radio network), and "Parenting Today" (CNN). In addition to growing media exposure, the PC Dads wrote numerous articles for publication in newspapers nationwide, offered helpful information through a Web site, and conducted touring "PC Safari" and "PC Frontier" workshops from Los Angeles to New Brunswick, Canada. In 1998, the PC Dads reached more than 170 million listeners / viewers with their advice and tips regarding cyber safety and other "healthy computing" information for parents.
• Several years of conducting workshops gave the PC Dads an understanding of the key issue on the minds of parents: keeping kids safe on the Internet. In February 1999, The PC Dads Guide To Becoming a Computer Smart Parent was published by Dell Publishing, New York. The book contains two chapters dedicated to protecting kids online.
• Today, the PC Dads, who changed the name of the program in September 1999 to "PC Parents" (with the addition of Elizabeth Kemper to the team), continue to speak out about Internet safety with their advice and tips for concerned parents. For example, in the August 1999 issue of Better Homes and Gardens (p. 70), the PC Dads were quoted extensively as cyber safety experts.
• To expand the reach of the program beyond the core PC Parents team (Mark Ivey, Elizabeth Kemper, and Ralph Bond) a new PC Parents Volunteer program was established in Summer 1999. The purpose of this program is to recruit and train volunteers at Intel's many North American facilities to conduct cyber safety and other home computing theme workshops in the communities where they live and work. The program is now being developed as a pilot at Intel's Chandler, Ariz., facility, with plans in place to spread the effort throughout Intel's facilities from Hudson, Mass., to California.