Making online safety accessible for all: Cyberlite's Nina Bual on equitable digital protection for children

In this insightful conversation with Cyberlite co-founder Nina Bual, we explore the critical landscape of children's online safety across the globe. Nina shares personal experiences as both a tech entrepreneur and mother of 3, revealing how even cyber experts face challenges protecting their own children online. Key highlights include:

• Nina's journey founding Cyberlite, which now provides accessible cyber safety education in 16 countries
• The six core online risks all children face, from cyberbullying to digital identity management
• Why accessibility in online safety education is crucial, with 95% of Cyberlite's resources available for free
• Practical advice for parents navigating gaming platforms and AI risks
• The importance of open communication rather than device confiscation when addressing online issues
• Nina's vision for "safety by design" - where technology defaults to child-safe settings rather than adult ones

Let’s empower families and reshape the digital landscape, together.

Transcript

Kay Vasey (00:01.4)

INTRO: 
Hello there, it’s Kay here, and today I’m delighted to be joined by Nina Bual, Co-founder of Cyberlite, a pioneering social impact company dedicated to empowering children, parents, and educators worldwide with essential online safety and digital literacy skills. Cyberlite is known for its creative resources, interactive workshops, and innovative approach to cyber education, currently reaching thousands of children across 16 countries.

Nina is a passionate advocate for accessible and equitable cyber safety education, driven by her deep understanding of both technology and parenting in the digital age. I'm thrilled to have Nina with us today. So, Nina, how are you doing?

Hello, it's Kay here and I'm so pleased to be joined by Nina from Cyberlight today and we're gonna find all about what Cyberlight does and her journey. So I'm gonna dive straight in with how are you today, Nina?

Nina (00:14.044)

Really well, I'm sitting here in India and Bangalore, lovely weather here, enjoying it. So all well, and yourself, okay?

Kay Vasey (00:21.772)

Yep, brilliant. All good. So calling in from Singapore today and really pleased that we get the chance to speak to each other today. So diving in with my first question, I'd love to know from your perspective, whether as a parent yourself or from the parents and kids you've worked with extensively, can you share a story that really brought home the importance of creating safer online spaces for children?

Nina (00:27.452)

sleep.

Nina (00:44.51)

Yeah, I mean, I am a mother of three. So just to give you a ground of how old they are, they're 14, 13 and eight. And we at CyberLight have worked with hundreds of thousands of kids. So there's many stories that sort of present themselves to why it's important to talk about cyber safety. But I feel when you look at your personal experiences as well, for someone I'm in cyber, my husband's also in cyber.

and I can promise you we don't have it locked down. It's not like we have the answers, especially with the 13 and 14 year old when they start to have more risk taking behaviour. I hear so many stories that they come home and tell me about what people have done in the classroom, how people have been using AirDrop in ways to infiltrate other people's content. And we see a lot of those stories pop up all over the place. And when you see it happening to your children as well, it can be quite daunting.

One of them was I was very, very adamant I had locked down my eight-year-old's account, so I was good. My husband had pulled our hair out, tried all the settings, but we got him sorted. And we filtered many of the pornographic sites out there. The one we didn't do was sex.com, right? Because we never just assumed that he would type in that actual word, which actually is obvious, right? So we were just going with the adult sites that we know about. Don't ask me how I know about those, but we know about, right?

but we don't actually think about how our children navigate the world and what their friends are saying to them. And luckily we have a good relationship and we talk about cyber all the time. my son said, you know, my friend asked me to type this in. I don't think I should, should I? And at the time we lived in Singapore and I thought, well, that's going to be locked down. And when I typed it in, wasn't, it's totally open. It's available for anyone. And I'm pretty sure as young as five or six people are typing that in. So it just shows how available in environments you don't

availability will happen. Like India and Singapore are supposed to be locked down but they aren't, it cannot be done. So you know there's so many stories I can tell of you know my kids coming home and telling me stuff. It's the things they don't tell me I'm not sure of right but they do have a lot of cyber risk around them.

Kay Vasey (02:57.964)

I think that's so interesting. think in relation to, know, in a way, thinking through how you play whack-a-mole, right, you can shut one down, but there'll always be another one. So in the sense that we may always be playing whack-a-mole, you kind of have to think, well, it was so amazing that your son actually came to you and wanted to have a conversation about it, right? That speaks volumes to me in relation to you having a very safe, open and honest household where children can feel like they could

and trust you not to judge them, but actually kind of to actually have an honest conversation about, well, I think I'm kind of looking maybe for something that maybe I shouldn't really, but I want to talk to you about it first. You know, that's the most important. Kids are always going to be curious. so, you know, having that really open, honest conversation is all important. I find your work so incredibly inspiring and I'd love to know more about your journey. So what first motivated

Nina (03:30.045)

Yeah.

Nina (03:39.539)

Yeah.

Nina (03:46.684)

Absolutely.

Kay Vasey (03:57.881)

you to get involved in educating children online on cyber safety and digital well-being.

Nina (04:02.942)

Well, thank you very much for the kind words, first of all. CyberLite is now five years old. So the journey really started with me being an entrepreneur and really looking at cyber security as something that I thought would be great. I've been an entrepreneur for 20 years, exited two companies and this would be my third. And I wanted to do something very different. I could hear my husband in his room doing cyber security and I could hear that that was interesting to me. I actually started by buying the Dummies

guide to cyber security, which was how much I knew at that point. And then I started to work with adults, working in a corporate setting, looking at cyber awareness and how we can train people in a corporate setting.

quickly realised that adults are sort of lost to us in a way. Everything is a little bit hard. Everything is about convenience, switching on an OTP or a password. It's a lot to ask. But I could see that if we had had this earlier within our curriculum, much like wearing a seatbelt, it would become the DNA of a work culture. And that when I explored that area and looked at how could cyber security be taught younger, it became really

aware to me that cyber safety on the whole wasn't being taught within the curriculum and while the infiltration of devices, the infiltration of technology is incredibly high.

The actual counter opposition of education in most environments is very low. So from there, I looked at what resources were available to our children, what are the topics that we need them to know about. And five years ago, my children were all at the age of compliance, so I wasn't seeing too much risk in my household. So I really wanted to give them something in a format that they could actually achieve or digest. And that's where our first book, Ready, Get, Set, Connect came about.

Nina (05:55.888)

and that was the beginning of the journey was to come up with something that was creative, resourceful and actually match the curriculum or the requirements of the schools.

Kay Vasey (06:06.432)

I love that. It's so amazing that you've created a legacy for your children in the sense of something that they you've you've you've come at it from a perspective of I wanted to create something for my own children. And then that's actually something that can be used by every child around the world. And so that's so incredibly powerful. I also love what you said about a seatbelt. So I often come back to this analogy of, you know, cars were fitted with seatbelts in the 1960s.

and it wasn't until 20 years later that we actually had regulations saying, you know, maybe we should actually regulate and say there are rules around having to get people to actually wear them. And there was still massive pushback at the time. So I know, but we shouldn't be interfering with people. know, people should be responsible for their own selves and their own safety. But actually now, if you think similarly, we've had the internet around for about 30 years publicly, is it now finally?

that we're going to buckle up for the digital age and have more of these guardrails available to kids and teens everywhere to actually make that journey along the information superhighway just that little bit safer. So in your amazing career, would you say that there's been this pivotal moment that's perhaps shaped your approach to educating children online?

Nina (07:19.23)

of slim.

Nina (07:31.472)

I think so. We started our journey in Singapore where there is already time and budget for cyber safety education and that allows you to be able to have accessible conversations with the school and with the governments as well because there's a true understanding of why it's required. But it wasn't until we ventured outside of Singapore and we really explored other environments. We are now in 16 countries and all of them have a very different appetite for cyber education.

education or online education. And so in Singapore, it was easy to pay or sell product. And what was pivotal to us is when we started to venture into classrooms in the Maldives or Bhutan and realizing that the risk was exactly the same.

but the material was not accessible or equitable. To be able to get that resource into a child's hand had too many barriers in the way where it really shouldn't have. We should have the right to accessible education at all levels. And so what you can see what Cyberlight has done is 95 % of what we do is free. You can go to our website, you can download those lesson plans. And it was really at some point where we realized we cannot be the barrier

If we want to be those who are supporting and looking after or educating or being something that can be a partner to parents, teachers, we needed to have that accessibility and that really changed CyberLite and our direction. How can we get this into as many hands as possible? While we're not an NGO, we are a social impact company. So we had to rethink how we did things so we could actually start making that impact.

Kay Vasey (09:18.958)

Incredible and and how then do you approach it because a lot of the other people that we have been speaking to are actually NGOs and so they rely on donations, grant funding etc. How what's the form that your business model takes?

Nina (09:35.452)

Yeah, we do it in several different ways and we're not against the grant or funding at all. And there are ways for us to go down that route. Really, we work with the governments directly. We work with corporates who are looking to engage or be part of the conversation, the technology companies as well. And then we have our own products that we sell directly into schools to support the curriculum within that country. So there's several different avenues. And again, we then make sure that we double

down and have lot of free resources that are available in different languages and are truly accessible. So some of our major clients who really support our work are Palo Alto and Microsoft, UOB Bank. There are many people who really support our initiatives year on year.

Kay Vasey (10:23.822)

amazing and I just think it's so amazing that I think I encourage everyone to go and check out the Cyberlight website and for all of those incredible free resources. And what is one unexpected lesson that perhaps you've learned along the way and has that changed the way you view your work?

Nina (10:43.421)

I think.

one of the lessons and this is just like a new lesson I can remember it because it was last month and you know that's how my memory goes but we just went to Bets UK where we were on the exhibition floor and Bets UK for those who may not know it is a great edtech conference that really brings everyone together globally to have a conversation of their best technology solutions for the classroom and obviously everything this year was AI everything had that baked into it but then there was an incredible despair

to when you sat and spoke to a teacher. In the UK, they don't have a device per child, as in many European countries, and I'm sure it's the same for the US and other environments as well. In Asia, I think we do have more device per child, like in India, that is the case, because they spent two years in COVID, so the whole education system changed. So many of the teachers hadn't even picked up AI, hadn't tried it, and were scared. So the cyber

risk path was now looking very much at AI and we just don't know anything. We don't know how to use it. We don't know what to be worried about. We don't know. Now before people wanted, didn't say it, we don't know. They were very much like, yeah, we understand the kids are Instagram. We understand they're on Facebook or like Fortnite because that was still in their zeitgeist and they felt that they knew something about it, though maybe not the depth that we go into in our jobs. But with AI, we're back at the drawing board of

What do we do? We know all our children are on it. We're seeing the risks starting to play out, but we don't have anything to support us to work out how to get this safe and responsive while our kids are just using it all of the time. So that's one of the things that I've learned that just sort of pops to mind right now. But as you know, Kay, in this job, it's a continuous learning. Even when you hear what the kids are up to, you hadn't even thought about that. You're just like...

Nina (12:40.412)

I would never have thought that you were going to use this tool in that manner. So there's a constant learning of how bad actors are using the tools, how children are using the tools, and how we haven't really been given the information to be able to actually pre-think that or support the children beforehand.

Kay Vasey (12:58.442)

Absolutely. think it's I've learned of two recently where kids are using Google Docs to then share, you know, links to, you know, otherwise places they probably shouldn't be going to. I also heard of one on Google Maps, where it's a particular place that you can go and then you can see lots of different people uploading, you know, TikTok images that perhaps, you know, would otherwise be barred or have

Nina (13:12.413)

Yes.

Kay Vasey (13:28.336)

been taken down. So, you know, it is always surprising how people are using technology. And I think it is constantly moving target this world, this online world. When we it requires us to have a very dynamic approach to how we are teaching our children to navigate this this online world. And so bouncing off in relation to go more into the scope and impact of your work, what do you think are

Nina (13:34.618)

Absolutely.

Kay Vasey (13:58.238)

the biggest online harms parents should be aware of today when it comes to the online space. Is it now this new advent of AI? Is it something that's more been around for a while?

Nina (14:08.478)

So I would say AI is just another tool to the same body of cyber risks. You will just see the same risks play out on different tools and platform. So the one thing about cyber risk is it's not the platform that's the risk, it's where the risk plays out. So at CyberLite, we created a framework where we identified six core risks to children that we believe all children from the age of five to 17 have the right to cyber education on. So a few of those are cyber bullying.

online relationships, your digital identity, is such an important one, how children are actually putting across their own brand at different ages and how they're being perceived. We know what you post is becoming more incredibly who you are and is being monitored and evaluated by your next boyfriend or the government. So many people are looking at that. Then we have privacy information security, which is where I started what you learn out in the corporate world of how

to stay safe. And then one big one is digital literacy. That AI is obviously causing a lot more issues with. I have more conversations with my kids than ever before with it ending with, that's not real, that's fake. Or them coming to me and saying, look at this, it's AI. You know, they're managing to spot it, but critical thinking skills are incredibly important in that environment and something to look at. And then online relationships is the last one.

all the tech they have pushes them at some point to communicate outwards and understanding who they're communicating with and what type of conversations and how safe they are, our children will all end up having online relationships. There's a staggering figure and I can't remember it now so I won't quote it, but how many people actually will have babies from meeting someone online? Like it's something like 50 % of people by 2030 would have met their partner and had a baby from online relationships.

So that's where our children are going end up. They're going to give an experimentation to meeting people online. Are we giving them the critical thinking skills to think about red flag behavior, green flag behavior before we get there? So these are the six arms that we believe all children should know about. And that can be sort of pulled over to digital well-being. It can be pulled over to the gaming platforms. It can be pulled over to AI as well. So those are the critical components to have a look at.

Kay Vasey (16:35.022)

Amazing, thank you. And how do you approach those? So are you, for example, creating very long-form reports? I don't think you are. How do you approach teaching kids about those six critical online harms?

Nina (16:43.654)

Yeah.

Nina (16:50.728)

So there's many ways that we teach. So we teach one by producing those textbooks, those resources that can go straight into a classroom, an online management tool where teachers can utilize the product online and then bring that down into the classroom as well. The other thing we do and have a lot of effort in is actually training the teachers. The gap is knowledge that the teachers and I will annex the parents actually have. They don't have the tools or the resources. So creating toolkits, short form information that they can

digest that's up to date and relevant for the age group. Okay, I know you have children, so you will know, but the difference between the seven and eight year old online is massive, right? What they want, what they know, the language that then exposed to is very big. So eight to 16 is a completely different world. And I live in that world where my teenage kids are really overexposing my son to stuff they shouldn't know. And that's true of any family that has a wide range of siblings.

don't learn at the age you want them to because they're on the school bus, know, their cousins are showing them or someone else. So it's a case of what do I need them to know to stay safe at certain ages and to be able to navigate that sort of language and skills online.

Kay Vasey (18:07.118)

Brilliant, thank you so much. And in a typical day in your role, do you have a typical day? Or is this every day different? Can you walk us through what does fighting online harms actually look like on the ground?

Nina (18:20.06)

Yeah, I don't actually have a typical day because being a co-founder or a startup, could be strategy, could be finance, it could be something else. But a typical day in Cyberlight, Cyberlight team will be out doing workshops. We have a great team who implement different types of workshops for the curriculum of that country. And we have implementation teams who will be pushing out our projects that we do with our corporate partners as well. So for a partner like UOB Bank, they are talking to children to

to give them the basics and the fundamentals of the journey and conversation, while someone like Microsoft will be teaching teachers and communicating with them about how they can use their products in a safe and responsible manner. We then consult with schools as well who really want to understand how do we build a cyber safety online framework. And we travel a lot, also having those conversations with governments and policymakers. We don't make policy, but we're in that unique position where we understand cyber

and the policy there and education and how we can marry it with the resource that is required to make sure that the end user actually gets the benefit from all the high-end thinking.

Kay Vasey (19:32.302)

Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm glad that every day is different and it keeps you on your toes, certainly. And do you have a particular impact? I mean, I know you have such great impact across the world, but is there a particular impact that you're most proud of from your work? And how do you approach measuring success?

Nina (19:35.454)

Definitely does.

Nina (19:52.434)

Yeah, there's two different types of impact. There's the ones that's driven by ego. So impacts when you get awards and you get that sort of accolade from your culture, you know, your community that makes a massive difference to drive. Like you can be at your desk slogging away and you're like, is anyone listening? Does anybody care? And then there's an impact when you go into the room. And one of the stories that I was in a school here in India where they, an amazing school where they take a child from five to job. So they will go all the way through to their

University and out to the other side and we were talking about online relationships, etc and one of the girls came up afterwards and was talking about how somebody had her photos and was trying to bribe her to get married to go back to the village and say look I have photos of you and that will destroy your family name so we need to get wed and they really just didn't know what to do with that and Really thought that the shame landed with them and we navigated a conversation with them got the school to help

and really actually talk to the parents and get this whole situation in hand. That's been really important and also things like how we've got schools to deal with cyberbullying and parents. Cyberbullying is prevalent but you and me may not think it is because it's not communicated by children. It carries a lot of shame, a lot of victim blaming. There's stats in India where 3 % of cyberbullying is identified as so low.

But when we talk to parents and we talk to teachers and start to communicate, if your child's been cyberbullied or you think it's happening, don't take away the phone. The phone is what everyone's scared of being taken away, so that's why they're not telling you. Because the phone is everything. Like my 13 and 14 year old, I can bribe to do most things by just saying I'm going to take away their phone, It's their lives. So...

We don't want children not to tell because something will be taken away from them. Actually, we've got to understand how we monitor the tool. We monitor the behaviour that's coming through the tool, not taking away their independence. And that's really affected and supported a lot of children that we have worked in in schools who found it incredibly empowering and parents have really been able to support or understand what's happening through the tools. So there's been lots of impact that we've made by just simplifying and making it easier for people to understand

Nina (22:13.46)

You don't have to understand technology. You don't have to have a great communication with your kids every single day, you know, or watch everything they're doing when they're 15. It's like, what's the solutions that actually work for you as a parent? And I think it helps me because I'm doing it right now. So I'm at the same level as often what I'm communicating.

Kay Vasey (22:34.094)

Thank you so much. Looking ahead then though, what initiatives are you most passionate about and how do you hope they're going to change the online landscape for kids?

Nina (22:44.914)

So I'm incredibly passionate about the usage of AI for our children in a way that I love the positivity that has actually provided and the utility. We have seen a democratisation of education. I've seen children here in India who can access exactly what you're accessing in Singapore with an incredible drive to succeed. And you can see how much they're doing. However, I also am aware that

we as a community have to start really putting some guardrails in and get children and corporates to understand the safety of actually utilizing these tools. And so being part of that conversation, I have just recently become the global ambassador for India for safe AI use and being able to leverage that and be able to really start having those conversations of how do we bring this safe and responsibly? How do we reiterate experiment and be open to change? We didn't have these conversations when we introduced

social media. Some of my Facebook, like what I was doing that day, I'm cringe when it comes up in my memories, right? I'm like, why was I telling the world that I was going for a coffee? Like nobody cared, but we did it. We all just kept putting everything out there, became part of the way we dealt with it. The fact that we can start building now for such a radical technology and supporting our children, especially in Asia, we often get forgotten. And I think as you all see it came with the people you're with,

working with. Asia is staying on step here in terms of regulation, in terms of policy, in terms of their children. We haven't got it right, but the conversations are happening right now.

Kay Vasey (24:26.806)

I think it's so interesting what you were saying earlier about that kind of critical thinking, right? It's absolute minefield. I mean, I know plenty of adults who also struggle with knowing what's real and what's not. And, you know, with this advent of AI, there's an awful lot more images, for example, or content being created where it's like, I don't know. I mean, the AI seems to have been created something really that looks so real, or the way that it's expressed itself is so convincing. I can't pick.

Nina (24:37.582)

absolutely.

Nina (24:50.599)

Yeah.

Kay Vasey (24:56.792)

through it if it's actually real or not. And so if adults are struggling at that level, how are we going to then address these issues for our kids and teens around the world, right? And certainly not the case that let's not just design a world where we just protect the English-speaking children of the West, right? Let's make sure we are designing things as inclusively as possible so that we can reach out to the children in Bhutan.

Nina (25:07.749)

Absolutely.

Kay Vasey (25:26.636)

we can reach out to the children in Myanmar. There are millions of children coming online every day. So, you know, let's not leave anyone behind and make sure that the materials that we are offering, the education that we are offering is as accessible and actionable by all as soon as possible. So.

Nina (25:33.968)

every day,

Nina (25:50.5)

Yeah, I actually say that an adult who says to me, I can't be conned by AI is the adult who's been conned by AI, right? Because I see things every day and I have to be like, okay, I'm just going to check, right? Because especially now the news is coming thick and fast every day and I have to Google or go and verify at least once a day. So if someone's like, you couldn't get me, you are got because it's so hard to check, especially as an adult as well.

Kay Vasey (25:59.182)

Absolutely.

Kay Vasey (26:18.786)

Yeah, totally. And I suppose that that will hopefully pervade into the way that teachers are addressing this in the classroom as well. So, you I hope that there will be teachers who are capable in future, for example, saying, look, everyone, we're now going to go through what the AI has actually given us as an output. But your task now is to go through and highlight which bits do you think are where the machine

has potentially hallucinated. The machine has actually made stuff up here and you we might need to just go and fact check. The more that we can get our kids to then be doing exactly what you were just saying in terms of like, hmm, I might just go and verify that. How?

do I fact check something? How do I verify something? What are the actual trusted sources that I can go to to then verify what the AI has given me? That is something that is going to help fuel that critical thinking and critical analysis and those skills that we need in the future. But then, as you see this technology evolving across the board, what do you think is one key area that we need to focus on to

Nina (27:26.877)

sleep.

Kay Vasey (27:36.59)

keep our kids safe.

Nina (27:38.428)

I don't know if we can say there's a key area. I think it goes back to those six key areas. Each child gets themselves into different situations on different platforms at different ages. And we need to ensure that they have the right access to information so that they can stay safe. For case an example, phishing and scams, right? Children are being scammed on gaming platforms all of the time, right? Even with the right conversations, they may not.

CS cam coming because they become highly sophisticated.

Scammers who may not have had great English skills who didn't know what a nine-year-old spoke like can now just use AI to come up with a great conversation that a nine-year-old will fall for. So in that respect that needs to be taught to a nine-year-old child as much as how to look after their digital identity, not put all their information across. If their voice and their face can be captured now, that can be used later to create a scam against their parents or to create credit cards once they're 18.

a 15 year old is streaming all of the time, I can imitate them very quickly. Not that I don't think 15 year olds should stream, but there should be a way of being aware of what those risks could be and not naively doing things.

Kay Vasey (28:58.306)

think it's so interesting what you say about scams. mean, from my own experience as well at home, know, one of my sons almost got scammed by someone who was like, hey, can you just let me into your account? Because I've got Robux to give you and, you know, we've been playing together for ages now and it's just been so fun. And I think you should, I want to give you something.

Now on the one hand, obviously you kind of say, well, obviously red flag, you know, think about it in the real world. Do you have people just going around on the street just giving out free, you know, currency or money? Generally no. But on the other hand, you also have, well, yeah, but people like Mr. Beast do it all the time, right? Like they have these channels where he just goes up to someone and just gives a thousand dollars or something. So, so maybe it is okay. So all of these kind of mixed messages.

that, you know, with the internet that doesn't have any guardrails or seat belts, you know, to wear is very difficult. And I think just trying to keep those lines of communication open so that you can have that conversation with your child to say, yes, okay, there is, and there are anomalies out there. There are people like Mr. Beast who, yes, do go up to people in the street and give out free money, but that is like 0.1 %

Nina (29:48.764)

Yeah.

Kay Vasey (30:18.26)

of people. Generally, people don't do that. And so if someone is offering you in-game currency for no real reason, and then is also asking you at the same time to offer up your password so that they can log into your account, anything asking questions like personal information about you, like what's your name, where do you live? Just think first, does this person need to know these

Nina (30:45.361)

Absolutely.

Kay Vasey (30:48.062)

things about me, could this potentially be a scam? But also where I'm coming from, I tell my kids, you know what, even daddy got scammed, right? Daddy got scammed by a little message that came through saying, you have to pay duty on this package. And he was just busy at work and kind of half read it and then filled in all the details, paid the money and was like, hang on a minute.

Nina (30:58.237)

Yeah.

Kay Vasey (31:14.732)

Maybe that wasn't right. And exactly as you said earlier in relation to AI, they had made a perfect DHL little site that looked really bona fide, that is absolutely, you you just have to pay a little bit of duty on this package that you've received. So if even adults are being scammed, what I need you to realise is that kids can get scammed too really easily. So if there's ever a time when you think there's something a little bit fishy, please

come to me and talk to me first. And together we can look at it and try to look at it objectively. And together, you know, we're stronger by two pairs of eyes instead of just one. And off we go. Right. And rather than kind of like, you know, making the child feel that they're too afraid to come and say to you, because as you saying earlier, it is shameful to have to admit that perhaps, I got scammed or there's someone who's taken my details and I've accidentally

Nina (31:57.16)

Yeah.

Kay Vasey (32:14.512)

and given them out. So really trying to keep those lines of communication open and coming at it as a pair, as a kind of team in a way, rather than kind of letting the child think that they're just navigating this online world alone, right? And so why do you think, I'm sorry, I'm now gonna give you a magic wand.

And if I could ask you if you could solve one issue with that magic wand in on light safety right now, what would it be?

Nina (32:48.574)

I think it'd be to go and...

look at the human design in a lot of the technology. It's not there to support parents, it's not there to support children. It's an easy way to navigate and get your child addicted to a game in Roblox. But it's not an easy way to get your child to be prompted to turn on their safety, to turn off their chat functions, to take their own initiative, to build a safe space where they can feel comfortable. If I had a magic wand, every technology would be set for a child and then an adult would have to go in and turn it

and make sure they reset it for an adult. At the moment, all technology is set for an adult and then we have to prompt it to then tell them it's a child. Reporting functions don't really work or they don't feel empowered enough to press the report button. You think it goes out into the world, you don't really know what's happened with that report button. In terms of prompts, we know prompts nudge us all the time. If you try sitting through a webinar and

not look at your notifications on your phone, you you're a genius because we are all Pavlov dogs, our phone barks at us, we all look at it. A child is exactly the same. You can use notifications and nudges for negative and you can use it for the positive as well. And we've seen that if you nudge a child and say, you think your message is offensive, they will correct the message 92 % of the time. They don't have an adult sitting by them, but they could have a nudge. So I think looking at human design, how can we build

some of these features in so children feel safer in their environments. Children don't mind being nudged or they don't mind human design. We're just not doing it.

Kay Vasey (34:30.028)

I love that. think you're so right. We never designed the internet with children in mind from the get-go. And yet now, more and more, there are more children online than ever before. And so, unfortunately, some response to this has been, keep them all out. We need to ban them. We mustn't have them in our spaces. But...

Nina (34:36.776)

Absolutely.

Nina (34:47.612)

Yeah.

Kay Vasey (34:52.364)

That is a very dim view of how resourceful children can be and how they can get around, you know, the kind of bands that you might be wanting to put in place. So wouldn't it be better to try to make the Internet and the online world a safer, more inclusive space, but that actually has tools enabled so that we can make age-appropriate experiences for children?

Nina (34:52.414)

cousin.

Nina (34:59.55)

That's very true.

Kay Vasey (35:22.408)

And I love what you said about, know, there should be a way that you can, you know, have safety built in by design. And from the get go, you're actually thinking, okay, let's turn everything off until the adult actually comes to turn it on rather than the other way around how it is today. Right. So, yeah, maybe we have hope. We have hope that there is help on the way that we can actually create such a situation. And so.

Nina (35:36.552)

Yeah.

Nina (35:43.55)

Thanks.

Kay Vasey (35:51.978)

Moving on to our exciting collaboration between CyberLite and KID, why do you think partnerships like ours are crucial for addressing online safety challenges?

Nina (36:02.075)

Yeah, I think partnerships on the whole amplify the messaging. As a start-upper, often I hear people who are trying to get into spaces no one's in. And I'm like, if you don't have a community around you, it's incredibly hard to really enforce the conversation. So people who are singing from the same hymn sheet, to take a really old analogy, really helps amplify the cause, the knowledge, and get people to listen. So I think that's the one thing we're very excited

about KID, we do have the same thoughts around technology and children. Neither CyberLite or KID ever says get them off, right? Ban it. Banning just puts them into encrypted dark spaces that mean you can't find. We want them in front of us, we want to know what they're doing and we want to guide them through and I think that's one common philosophy that we have.

Kay Vasey (36:57.23)

Absolutely right. And how do you see our collaboration empowering parents and making a difference in children's online experiences?

Nina (37:04.848)

Yeah, I mean, I really feel for parents, I think probably being one, but there is too much onus on parents just to know. It's like being given a newborn baby, right? And you're suddenly just like, I remember thinking, what, I just take it home? Is anyone going to follow me? Like, I don't know what I'm doing. The same when you give a child a device, suddenly you're supposed to be well equipped, very knowledgeable. And that's a very overprivileged thought process. I hear it all the time. It should be the parents who do this or the parents who do that.

And whoever's saying that has two parents at home and they have time on their hands and they have more than one device, right? In the reality of where we're sitting in Asia, parents are working consistently. They may be a single parent. They may not have much knowledge or even their own device. They've made sure they've bought their charter device before they've got themselves one. And then we're putting the onus of knowledge about parenting, but make sure they also have their maths, their English, have learnt a language, are reading right. It's just too

So I think where KID and Cyberlight really steps in is digesting that knowledge down to the conversation a parent can understand. I read a lot of these policies and regulations and it takes me a while. I really have to be in this world and I still am not sure what I just read. So I don't expect a parent to have to do that and I don't expect them to have to advocate on their behalf to scream at the technology companies. We are here.

and we will start having those conversations for them. So there's a few ways that I think we support parents.

Kay Vasey (38:41.174)

I'm so excited to be able to amplify your work more and spotlight what you're doing. And I think that working together alongside our other safety partners as well, I think it's going to be really exciting bringing everyone to the table and then saying, hey, you know, how can we actually learn from each other and how can we start to remix some of this content? Because not everyone has finite resources, right? So but where we can fill in for each other, that'd be really interesting. So, for example, parent protect their

really good at creating videos and they do lots of vox pops with kids and teens sharing all about you know so from you know what does a kid think about

screen time and how you approach a conversation with the parents. Other organisations may be like, I'd love to know how you create those videos. And actually we've got some really great content that could be made into a subject of a new video and perhaps we can all collaborate together. So think currently the information is very fragmented and largely designed around the English speaking readers of the world. And so being able to work together,

excites me a lot because we can kind of then, as KID, come in and say, perhaps there's a way that we can say there's lots of different types of learners. There's visual learners, there's audio learners, there's those, of course, yes, who read, but they're also kinesthetic learners who need to move and interact with something when they're learning. So are there different multimodal ways that we can represent these type of content? And for example, when it comes to ICMEQ's 80-page report, which is massively well-researched,

and beautifully put together, but that no parent in their right mind has the ability to really kind of sit down and digest and just simply doesn't have the time to go through it all. Perhaps all together we can say, well, actually as a group, how could we make that more easily digestible, not only for parents, but also kids and teens all over the world? So is there anything in particular that excites you most about working with us and how does it

Kay Vasey (40:52.644)

line with your vision for a safer digital future.

Nina (40:58.054)

I think one of the things we're really excited is to explore that gaming part of the journey as well. As I discussed before, there's different platforms, there's different tools where our children access this, and we find that that channel is one that is an exciting space for children, parents are the most confused about, lack the most knowledge really, because games have been used very much as a babysitter, especially in my house, where you will give it to your child where you think, they're not in a trance watching Netflix, they must be.

doing something exciting and then you walk in and you're like not that thank you. So it's a space that hasn't been communicated to adults very well. Teachers don't know how to utilize it in the classroom for learning and so many gaming platforms have come up with great strategies for learning in the classroom as you just said Kay there's different modalities that we can learn and instead of being scared of it all we can use it as well to teach our children about sustainability, diversity,

about maths or English, it was much easier than me teaching them myself. there's lots of things that can be done in this arena and I think with KID and our knowledge, we can really marry that up and really get parents to know what they need to know and also enjoy the gaming world.

Kay Vasey (42:14.956)

You're so right. think it's interesting because I think a lot of parents today did actually have their own experience of social media when it came out. So they know how to they sorry they knew how to set up a profile. They know what it's about. know back in the day when we had like a massive wall and we're kind of poking each other and all those things. So we understood what it was. And so slightly easier for us to then be like OK well maybe don't do that on social

Nina (42:34.108)

Yes.

Kay Vasey (42:44.882)

media, etc. But with gaming, especially this kind of like massively multiplayer online gaming platforms, not many of us have actually grown up with those. So how we then understand, well, what so what does the text chat do? And how do you turn on or off the voice chat? Who can say what to who can how do you set up a private server? So it's just with your friends. And how do you know who's in there? You know, how do you navigate all these strangers online that you might be

playing with, right? So it's so unfamiliar. And so then that's where you get the kind of fear element in, you get the kind of blind leading the blind feeling and like, maybe I should just kind of shut it all down. Not then realizing how amazing exactly as you were saying how amazing these games can be for learning, playing and generally growing up online and understanding and and

building these relationships, actually sometimes quite deep relationships with other players, which, as you're saying, could potentially go on to having relationships and babies in future and all of those things, right? So I don't know if you saw...

Nina (43:54.792)

Yeah.

Kay Vasey (43:59.426)

the story of Ibelin, which is a guy whose parents thought that because he was in a wheelchair his whole life and he was not able to have very much interaction with the whole world and so died young and a very sad life. Actually, when he died, what happened was his whole online world, his whole world of Warcraft persona was uncovered and all of these people came to the fore and said,

he's changed my life, he's been one of my best friends, I feel so connected to him, I feel I want to come to his funeral. You know, so that to me, and I watched that with my children, on the one hand I said, isn't it amazing how you can form such deep relationships with people online?

At the same time, it gave me enough opportunity, another opportunity to say to them, but you also don't know who's behind the avatar, right? So you have to be careful. We're very lucky that Ebelin was this incredibly caring person, but that same avatar could have been a bad actor who wants to kind of, you know, exploit you, et cetera. So you have to be very, very careful, right? And so.

Nina (44:53.768)

Yeah.

Nina (45:08.072)

Yeah.

Kay Vasey (45:10.838)

What do you think is one thing that parents can start doing today to create that healthier balance between online and offline activities for their kids?

Nina (45:19.634)

I think simply acknowledging that your children are online is still not happening, right? We parent on their offline worlds. We know who their friends are. We go to their sports days and we interact. Now ask a parent, when was the last time you sat with your child and scrolled? When was the last time that you gamed with them? When did you see where they're navigating online? And one of the things I always do at the beginning of any of my workshops is write down the 10 spaces your child frequents.

What does it look like? Who's in there? Where are they conversing? I think that's a simple way for parents to realize that your child is in a world often that you are not part of. And it simply takes a conversation. So one of the things we do at the dinner table is, how's your day? What's going on? What's the gossip? But what's happening in your online world? Did you see that meme? Did you see that? What's viral on your channel? We have a 13 and 14 year old girls. It's nothing like what I see. So I'm always like,

What? Like what's happening? What's the hashtag? It allows me to know what's going on, sound cooler and younger than I am, but also made them realize I care, that I understand that that is part of their lives. And that sort of opens up. So simple communication. don't think continuously telling parents to go over and above all the time is helpful. I mean, I'd love you all to switch on your parent controls and use them effectively and you'll get

But first of all start working out where you are and then you'll realize okay, there's some risk here I'd like to shut that down

Kay Vasey (46:57.87)

Absolutely, empathising with them where they are, understanding the environments in which they are in will allow you then to understand the potential risks but also the massive benefits of being online. And so though, in the scenario of a child facing online harm, how can parents recognise the signs that there might be something bad going on and what should they do next?

Nina (47:09.979)

Absolutely.

Nina (47:24.422)

Yeah, unfortunately parents, it is very hard to recognise the signs and that's something to be aware of and not feel that you've failed in many ways because a lot of risk will be done with manipulation by bad actors to ensure that you can't see them. For example, there is a lot of communication or conversation about how roadblocks strangers will actually speak to your children. But what people don't realise is they don't want to speak to your child on roadblocks. Roadblocks is filtered. It will stop conversations. What they want

them to do is to come onto an encrypted platform, to move over to WhatsApp and Telegram and things like that. So they end up in environments where you can't see them. So that's something to be aware of and to understand where your child is at all times. And that goes back to my initial conversation of like, you know, really navigate and map out what their cyberspace looks like.

Kay Vasey (48:19.606)

And if you could go back in time though and pretend that you're a tween or a teen again, knowing what you know now about the online world, what advice would you give to your younger self?

Nina (48:30.364)

You give me a lot credit. I'm not old enough to... I'm older than having technology as a teen or a tween. So I didn't have any of those issues and thank God because if there were photos of me at university doing what I was doing, I would be mortified. So I think more... I keep telling them that and I'm like, look, if you saw what mummy did, you'd be well embarrassed and you'd be mortified if that was on technology. So don't let that happen to you. Like you want to keep your social media yourself.

self-guarded. My children are very young and so they're not allowed to post online, they're not allowed to communicate outwards with people that they don't know. My poor 14 year old has like five people on her Instagram and they're all my sisters. you know it's still quite closed off though she does have it because I do want her to be able to navigate it while I still have eyes on her. There will be a time when she will have a Finster account, one that I can't see and hopefully that

learning and behaviour will carry on. can't watch her and I can't stop the risk, but hopefully I'm supporting her to navigate it. So I'm one of the lucky ones. I grew up without my media until I started poking people at 28, but they were slightly different. On Facebook, just to add, anyone who's younger and doesn't understand that term.

Kay Vasey (49:46.566)

Amazing. Yeah. And I could talk to you all day, but we're going to kind of start towards closing out now. So these are more kind of like quickfire questions. So if you had one message to parents raising kids in today's digital age, what would it be?

Nina (50:09.374)

to realise you are allowed to access your child's phone. Like I have a saying with my kids, if I pay the bill, I get to see everything on it, right? Don't feel that you don't get to pick that up. As much as you'd walk into a room to see if they're okay, you're allowed to go onto their online spaces and see if they're okay. That's not an argument or anything that has to happen. At any age, so you're paying for that bill, feel free to have a look at their phone and see if they're comfortable. I find that my children also feel that they're more safe and secure and looked after.

if I know what's happening in their digital world.

Kay Vasey (50:42.626)

really excellent. think it's, so important, right? You don't, in that same analogy of you wouldn't want your child's bedroom to be permanently locked and for them, you never ever to know what's going on in behind that closed door. So go in and periodically, not every day, but periodically just check in. No, absolutely check in and see if everything's okay in that room. And myth busters now, what's a myth about online safety that you'd like to bus right here?

Nina (50:57.842)

Yeah, not understand. We haven't got the time, but yeah.

Nina (51:10.984)

that everybody in the service safety world knows what they're doing. You know, it's very easy to think that we are all here having a conversation and we've got it right. It is a moving world. I cannot believe how much it's moved in the last year. Like everything we were preaching about digital literacy and misinformation is old, right? We've had to rethink how we have that conversation with our younger children because it's not like if it's slightly murky and the image doesn't write right and that the spelling is wrong. That's not a thing anymore.

all corrected and AI supports the cyber criminal. So yeah, we are learning, we are navigating, there is really no cyber safety expert because it's continuously changing and so continue to check in, see what's happening, see what's changing, have our voices moved, is the industry saying something different, are we ready to move together? Otherwise we're just not staying up with the pace of technology or the needs of our children.

Kay Vasey (52:11.128)

I love that, so interesting that you say, you know, that we live in this dynamic online world where safety is this moving target. So we are, you know, there is no real expert and we are all just trying our best to keep up with the pace of technology. And finally, if you could sum up your vision for the future of online safety in just three words, what would they be?

Nina (52:18.44)

Mmm.

Nina (52:25.222)

Absolutely.

Nina (52:33.958)

gosh, I don't know if I can. Three words I've never spoken so little in my life. I'm in long form. Three words. I don't know. I really couldn't answer that one.

Kay Vasey (52:46.72)

All good, no worries, all good. Thank you so much, Nina. It's been a real, real pleasure to speak to you. Thank you so much for the work that you do all over the world and continue to do and continue to change the lives of all the different children and parents that you touch. And I very much look forward to working with you and shining more of a spotlight on your work. So thank you so much. Great stuff. Thank you, Andrea.

Nina (52:54.846)

Well, thank you.

Nina (53:08.346)

Absolutely. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. Great.

OUTRO:

That was such an insightful chat with Nina—I especially loved her practical advice about regularly checking in with our kids' online worlds, just as we do offline. The message is clear: stay involved, keep the conversations open, and remember, we're all learning this together.

Until next time, this is Kay Vasey handing back to Kieran Donovan at k-ID with a quick reminder.