Better Internet for Kids

Second and third grade secondary school students can now also play the digital escape game Friend Zone during their class visit to Technopolis. No doors or boxes with missing keys, but tablets, a new social media platform and hidden IP addresses are the object of a unique and innovative game that tests how aware young people are of the digital and social pitfalls of social media.

The scenario is fully in line with the world of young people and raises questions about sexting, disinformation, new technologies, privacy and hacking. The game also takes maximum account of the educational goals of digital competence and media literacy.

This game is innovative thanks to the co-creation with Child Focus, LUCA School of Arts, IBM and Technopolis. The game is hosted on IBM Public Cloud, which makes it available to other organisations, in Belgium or abroad, that want to play. In a cloud environment, you can handle peaks in gaming activities very flexibly. What makes it completely unique is that Technopolis has made it an open platform. It invites other game developers, fellow science and do-it-yourself centres and other organisations to use the platform to further improve the game. The open source technology behind the game and platform, for example, allows the story or the technology to be adapted.

Find out more information about Friend Zone on the Technopolis website.

Find out more information about the work of the Belgian Safer Internet Centre (SIC) generally, including its awareness raising, helpline, hotline and youth participation services, or find similar information for Safer Internet Centres throughout Europe.