OREANDA-NEWS. July 22, 2015. Aimed at enhancing awareness around the pervasive use of digital technology and training students on digital well-being, National e-Governance Division* (NeGD), in collaboration with Intel, concluded the Digital Wellness Online Challenge reached out to upto 10 lakh children , of which 9.28 lac children registered and cleared level 1 and 31.9 thousand children cleared level 2. Coverage is across each and every single state and UT pan India. The online quiz was designed to create a culture of digital wellness amongst children from classes 6 to 12 by promoting awareness on the benefits as-well-as the potential threats of Internet-based interactions and familiarizing students with different types of digital threats, consequences and protective measures. The 144 winners from across 36 states in India will be felicitated by Honorable Minister for Communications and IT in an event to be held in New Delhi later (date to be taken from Hon’ble MCIT’s office).

Post the completion of the challenge, President and CEO-NeGD, said, “The young generation of today spends a considerable proportion of their time every day on the internet and the number is rapidly increasing. Many of these users lack familiarity to digital threats and possible safety measures. Hence there was a dire need of introducing a fun and interactive way of making these users acquainted with the challenges. We are extremely delighted to see the response we’ve received for this Challenge. We extend our heartiest congratulations to the winners of the Challenge and hope to make more such efforts”.

The online quiz was available in Hindi and English. On successful completion of the quiz, the students were given an option to print/email their electronic certificates. The provision for four winners per state as ‘Digital Wellness Champions’ These winners would be invited to New Delhi by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY)/NeGD and will be felicitated by the government in an award ceremony.

The challenge successfully made children and youth aware of digital wellness and trained them to take informed decisions and be safe, respectful and responsible users of digital technology. It was designed as a fun engaging quiz activity for children to encourage participation. The Digital Wellness Challenge uses knowledge-based questions to provide information and scenario-based questions to encourage participants to think, decide and choose an action that ensures their online safety and security. Through learning by quizzing methodology, the challenge trained the children on building Digital Wellness and protecting themselves from threats often faced in digital and cyber space such as Cyber Bullying, Cyber predators, Gaming addiction, Identity theft, Copyright Infringement and Plagiarism, etc.