[citation needed] Samuelson served on the initial three-person advisory board for Jeff Skoll's Participant Productions.
[4] In 1982 Samuelson and his cousin, actress Emma Samms, were inspired by a boy battling an inoperable brain tumor, and started the Los Angeles based non-profit organization Starlight Children's Foundation which brings entertainment and technology to children in hospitals.
[1] In 1990, Samuelson brought together leaders including Steven Spielberg and General Norman Schwarzkopf to create the STARBRIGHT Foundation,[5] a charity dedicated to developing media and technology-based programs to educate and empower children to cope with the medical, emotional and social challenges of their illnesses.
Five years later, they launched the interactive social network Starbright World that helps seriously ill children meet and develop relationships with peers through video, sound, text, and avatar based communication.
[8] Samuelson was the first managing director of the Media Institute for Social Change (MISC) at the University of Southern California.