TO further strengthen their efforts in educating children and families about online safety and digital citizenship, PLDT Inc. — through its PLDT Home unit — and Google have teamed up to scale up “Be Internet Awesome.”

In a statement, PLDT said they are aiming to make the internet safer for Filipino children, the partnership underpins PLDT Group’s commitment to customer-centricity and doing business responsibly.

“This collaboration reinforces our child protection advocacies and responsibility to keep online spaces safe for all. As we strengthen customer-centricity, we not only find ways to simplify technology and elevate the quality of experience for customers of all ages, but also strive to put their safety and well-being in the way we design and develop our products and services,” Alfredo Panlilio, president and chief executive officer of PLDT and Smart Communications Inc., said.

“After launching Be Internet Awesome in 2021 in the Philippines, we are glad to have found a like-minded partner in PLDT who champions the same values when it comes to protecting kids online. Through PLDT and more potential partners in the future, we hope to scale Be Internet Awesome and provide more families with a practical way of teaching digital safety and wellness to their children so they can become responsible, confident explorers of the online world,” Bernadette Nacario, country director of Google Philippines, said.

Google’s Be Internet Awesome program is a global effort designed to teach children about online safety and digital responsibility.

The program provides modules, online games and other materials that teachers, parents and guardians can use to educate kids about digital citizenship and literacy.

The learning materials were piloted in more than 20 schools last year. From the initial reach of over 2,000 students, Google and the Department of Education had engaged over 12,000 students from Grades 4 to 8 across Metro Manila and nearby areas toward the end of 2021.

Be Internet Awesome is part of the many efforts of Google to help keep people safe online.

PLDT, on the other hand, has institutionalized a pioneering Child Safeguarding Policy that applies to the telco’s entire workforce and extends to its engagement with customers, communities, business partners and others.

PLDT has also invested over P2 billion in its cybersecurity defenses, under which the telco has deployed a Child Protection Platform which detects and prevents domain and content-level access to child sexual abuse materials within its network. The group also secured alliances with sectors and child protection entities such as United Nations Children Fund, the Internet Watch Foundation, Canadian Center for Child Protection, International Justice Mission and SaferKidsPH, among many others.

This partnership with Google for Be Internet Awesome is aligned with PLDT’s broader sustainability initiative to embed data privacy, cybersecurity and child online protection into its products and services. This also supports ending abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against children, a goal target under the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 16.