Google announces the third edition of Web Rangers contest

by Shrutee K/DNS

Mumbai : This children’s day, Google is announcing the third edition of its Web Rangers contest — an initiative that is designed to spread awareness about Internet safety and promote digital citizenship. The competition aims to encourage teenagers to discover their hidden ninjas and unlock their creativity in highlighting the importance of cyber safety. After screening thousands of entries, the program will reward seven Web Rangers — who know it all about staying smart, safe and savvy online.   The contest is open to students across the country within the age group of 10 and 17 years. Whether you have one or many great ideas, there’s a way you can participate. One can choose the category that interests them and put their creativity and skills to test. 

Details on the three categories: 

Campaign: Run your own internet safety campaign, either individually or as a team of three. It could be one large initiative or a collection of multiple projects like a social media campaign, a video series, awareness drives or all of them — there is no restriction on the format or the number of initiatives.

Project: If you prefer to work individually and have that one amazing idea, then this is for you. The format is completely open - create a video, website, app or a game - but remember, it should empower users to stay safe on the Internet and learn what it takes to be a good digital citizen

Poster: Put your creative hat on — design a poster that captures the theme of Internet safety and send it across to us. It’s as simple as that.

“With the Web Rangers contest, our idea is to promote safe use of the Internet among school students and create better awareness amongst the teenagers on how to be good digital citizen and staying safe online. We have seen an overwhelming response to our first two editions and the participation numbers are only growing. This year, we are ramping our efforts to reach more and more teenagers across India and will be hosting many online and offline events. As we celebrate the third edition of the Web Rangers contest, we can't wait to see what the students have in store for us." said Sunita Mohanty, Director, Trust and Safety at Google.

As part of its efforts to promote internet safety and digital citizenship, Google has been running programs to train student ambassadors and teachers across 5000 schools across states, covering topics like cyberbullying, managing digital footprint, identifying fake content, dealing with online scams and more. 

Those interested to participate in the Web Rangers contest, can sign up here. All one has to do is fill up this form, take a printout and get their parent’s sign-off before they submit via email or send it to Google’s Hyderabad office. 

The deadline for submitting the entries is 23:59pm on January 15, 2018. If you’re in need of some inspiration, check out last year’s winning entries. 

Web Rangers is Google’s global program and was launched in India in 2015 with student ambassadors across 15+ countries. So, what are you waiting for? Wear your superhero capes, share your most innovative idea and get a chance to become Google’s 2017 Web Ranger.