Building a Better Internet for Children and Young People
On the second Tuesday of every February, more than 100 countries around the world come together to celebrate Safer Internet Day. This global day of awareness aims to empower everyone to use technology responsibly, respectfully, critically and creatively, especially children and young people.
At Gen, Cyber Safety is our focus all year long. Over the past few years, we’ve developed new tools and platforms that address the most common issues that young people face online, from scams to cyberbullying to protecting personal information. We continue to partner with leading nonprofit organizations around the world to provide children, young people and their families with the resources they need to navigate life online with confidence and care.
Empowering Kids and Families to Have The Smart Talk
Norton, one of our trusted Cyber Safety brands, partners with National PTA to offer The Smart Talk, a free resource that helps families have ongoing conversations about how to use the internet responsibly. The platform has grown to more than 12,000 users since launch, and Norton continues to provide technical support, keeping The Smart Talk up to date with the most current information about Cyber Safety best practices. In addition to offering this tool for free online, Norton makes possible grants to local PTAs to host live PTA Connected: The Smart Talk workshops with parents, children and educators.
“The Smart Talk [helped bring] awareness to our families that healthily social media and internet safety is more than just a password,” said one grantee. “This program opened heartfelt, honest conversations and set plans in place to protect one another in an increasingly cyber world.”
Helping Young People Build Digital Skills
Norton also partners with Discovery Education, a global leader in education technology, on My Digital Life, a multi-language platform dedicated to enhancing Cyber Safety for children in grades 3-8. The platform contains lesson plans, videos and interactive tools for teachers, students and parents that outline the best ways students can avoid viruses, detect misinformation, protect their privacy and more. My Digital Life expanded into schools across the U.K. in 2024, bringing its total reach to more than 264,000 students globally. The free website is now translated into Spanish and Arabic with French and German being added later this year. Learn more about this partnership here.
In India, Norton works with Bal Raksha Bharat (BRB), also known as Save the Children – India, to train schoolteachers on how to instill strong digital habits in their students. Over the past year, the program reached more than 10,000 students, parents and educators across 40 schools in Pune, Maharashtra and Thiruvallur, Tamil Nadu, with tailored lessons for students aged 10-12 and 13-16. Since the program launched in 2021, more than 27,600 children have taken online safety classes, while 1,800 teachers and more than 4,600 parents have also received online safety orientation.
Additionally, we recognize that not all young people experience the internet in the same way. For example, young women face a unique set of challenges when navigating life online, and we believe they should have resources that address these needs.
That’s why we partner with the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS) to offer Surf Smart 2.0, a unique badge-earning program that gives girls and young women aged 5-25 the basics of Cyber Safety and responsible digital decision-making. Between April 2023 and April 2024, WAGGGS estimates that this partnership has reached more than 42,000 girls and young women, including more than 17,800 who earned the Surf Smart 2.0 badge. In total, since its inception, Surf Smart has empowered over 850,000 young people in over 100 countries, providing them with vital tools to help protect themselves online.
We also support The Trevor Project, the leading suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ+ young people, who have experienced an increased need for the organization’s services in recent months. We provide ongoing support to The Trevor Project’s affirming online community for LGBTQ+ young people. We also co-developed the organization’s Guide to Online Safety for LGBTQ+ Young People, a free digital resource to help queer young people navigate the digital world. The guide was mentioned in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ 2024 National Strategy for Suicide Prevention as an example of “What Success Looks Like” in specialty resources for particular communities.
We hope this year’s Safer Internet Day continues to inspire a better internet for all. These grants were awarded from the Gen Foundation, a corporate advised fund of Silicon Valley Community Foundation. For more on our Cyber Safety education and training efforts, visit our latest Social Impact Report.
