Siona (Dolly) Pramoda 

Covid brought me (and my friends) boredom, isolation and somewhat misguided curiosity. With our friends, we’d decided we’d change our birth years to gain access to the hallowed digital wonderland called Instagram. For weeks, we furtively marveled at glamorous insta-lives. How could we make more people like our posts?

Over time, we realized that there was a whole behind-the-scenes crew. They were pulling our strings by timing our dopamine releases. While we were looking for appreciation from others, the “others” (companies and criminals) were shopping for us.

Our insta phase left breadcrumbs. One that was tracked by massive computer algorithms - details about us from our posts, views, and reactions; that they can tell more about each of us than we know. These companies spent big money to learn about us - privacy is a hot commodity and someone could use this to manipulate us like lifeless widgets. This was easy to dismiss until one of our classmates wandered into a dark digital hole, became progressively disconnected until one day, he committed suicide. While we will never know exactly what led him there, we’ve to learn and protect our information against misuse. And this realization guided us to the work at SafeTeensOnline, to share what we’d learnt, to invite discussion on these important topics, improve our collective awareness, and build a digitally safe future for us.

According to UNICEF, “Online platforms were the most used means by the governments to deliver education while schools remain closed, with 83% of countries using this method”. Alongside that, in 2020, FBI noted that eight children per day face online exploitation. Within the US, DQ Institute confirmed that ~12M children are exposed to cyber risks, ~9M are affected by cyberbullying, and 6M experienced cyber threats in the US only.

Within our island (Puerto Rico), during March 2020, the number of referrals we got from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children increased 48 percent, followed by 127 percent in April and 23 percent in May. In response, U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Child Exploitation Investigative Unit educates children and teens on the dangers of cyberbullying and sexual predators and offers them tips on how they can stay safe online.

We are now aware that while the digital world opens up opportunities (and continued online school during Covid), it also opens the door to numerous risks. Once a predator has established trust online, they can encourage a child to meet them in person, potentially resulting in kidnapping or human trafficking. We want youth in the world to thrive online, safely - physically, emotionally, financially and digitally safely. We want that on our island (Puerto Rico), in our country and for the entire world.

We promote cyber safety for teens through a peer led learning and experience sharing community. We identify students as high risk based on their usage patterns, awareness, attitudes and perceptions towards cyber risks. Individually, we identify specific factors that impact this risk score along with personalized education to help address the student’s specific risk factors. Our clubs and local chapters are the digital and physical safe spaces to collaboratively learn.

Education metrics: time spent, frequency of usage, engagement with peers on safety, attendance at in-person and virtual events to to sustain mindshare on this issue.

Our micro-learning modules are gamified to promote engagement, learning, sharing, advocacy, recognition for the learners and their facilitators. Our learning network consists of:

• Ambassadors, local school student leaders,school administrators and educators - they support their peers in content creation, learning, and sharing.

• Coordinators - they support ambassadors, drive national and global programming.

Video content is a priority - Per Forrester, a 1-minute video is equivalent to 1.8mm written words for training retention. Our youth design microlearning videos per guidance from partner organizations (Dept of Homeland Security, UN Youth Assembly, renowned universities, and industry practitioners) to deliver modules for each learning goal.

This is a multi-stakeholder, ultra-marathon. So, we strive to do several small things right to harvest the compounding effects of momentum:

To reach more students, rolled out an award system for advancement. We will also feature educators and students in quarterly podcasts on our blog.

Convened a group of Indian educational leaders on WhatsApp to share information regarding implementation, student engagement, and parent involvement - will expand to other countries next.

Collaborating with a lead educator in Haiti to translate the survey into Creole. The state STEM coordinator is helping us with Spanish sponsorship in Puerto Rico. And by working with Gujarati school systems, we are expanding into Indian languages.

Completed focus groups in Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Egypt, Dubai and Haiti, planning program roll outs.

Collaborating with prominent academics to pursue publication of our paper about the cyber risk predictive model. Our first paper was published this summer.

Exploring a potential distribution opportunity (of a pre-installed education module) with T-Mobile at the point of handset sale.

Our inaugural Cyber & Beyond Bootcamp , in conjunction with Cyber Safety Awareness Month ran throughout Oct 2022. Hosted 1500+ students from 7 countries in a diverse speaker series on all things digital.

We’re a student led organization. Much like a candle can light many others, we're thrilled to have ignited the curiosity of our peers, and they’ve committed to do the same for others. Collectively, our wingspan has grown substantially

Geographies: 4 countries, 3 continents. Each country, region and school efforts are led by local student leaders

Schools: 40+, mostly private middle and high schools in English speaking countries - decentralized decision making that make early adopters. We’re currently working with local education authorities to incorporate it in the public school curriculum

US presence: 15 US states+PR

Students reached through our curriculum: 20K+

Ambassadors added: 30+ - through their leadership and passions, they have doubled our microlearning content library and added Spanish language content

Educators contacted and made aware of our program: 1K+

Parent outreach efforts: 2500+ globally

Curriculum modules created for 2+ academic years

>2k students responded to the SafeTeen Online anonymous survey in the 2021-22 academic year alone. This data has become the basis of a machine learning predictor that flags students as high risk candidates for cyber incidents. Our study has identified specific areas of education to improve student digital readiness

>100 students participated in Cyber & Beyond, our inaugural 8-session speaker series on all things digital