14 DAY TRIAL // Throughout Central and Eastern Europe, Microsoft has become actively involved in raising awareness of the risks posed to children by Internet usage. The company is collaborating with local governments, but also NGOs and celebrity ambassadors across EMEA, for Child Online Safety events designed to mark the official EU Safer Internet Day. The initiative, which debuted on February 12, 2009, is planned to last an entire year, and will involve not only governments and industry members, but also key consumer groups for each country that will have the opportunity to learn first hand from Microsoft practices that will increase online safety.
"The Internet is an excellent, immersion tool for learning and schools are keen to encourage use in the classroom while parents are helping children to use the web at home for entertainment and education," explained Vahe Torossian, president, Microsoft Central and Eastern Europe. "In doing so, we need to keep our children safe and at Microsoft, we view Child Online Safety as one of our most important responsibilities. We take a collaborative approach, working with governments, teachers, parents and also respected personalities who are our Ambassadors of Child online safety, to raise awareness of this vital issue and contribute to developing the local expertise and channels of communication which help children to understand how to use the Internet safely."
Microsoft Evangelist Miel Van Opstal is one of the company's employees that jumped at the chance to teach students about the dangers on the web, and how to avoid them. Microsoft already announced that no less than 23 of its subsidiaries across Europe would, via employee volunteering activities associated with Safer Internet Day 2009, get involved in the process of educating students on Internet risks. In total, the Redmond company estimates that over 800 Microsoft employees will be able to educate more than 50,000 students.
“I joined a bunch of colleagues to join a citizenship project at Microsoft. We went to schools throughout the country and spent a couple of hours talking to 8-year old kids about the dangers of internet and cyber bullying. Not that we went out to scare them, au contraire! But as the internet users get younger and younger, it’s very important to give them a proper training about the world wide interwebs and what lives ‘in there’. The focus of the sessions I gave at the school I went to with 3 other colleagues, was on how to create a safe password, how to protect your identity and personal data and how to behave on social networks. The sessions always closed with a talk about cyber bullying and how to react to it,” Van Opstal added.