Digital Champions

Digital Champions are ambassadors for the Childnet Digital Leaders Programme.

We currently have five Digital Champions who underwent an application process to be selected as our youth representative board. The Digital Champions help the Childnet Digital Leaders team to ensure that the programme is youth led. They represent a youth voice which is essential to the programme’s success and support us with module development, content creation, events and consultation, as well as representing the programme in the wider online safety community.

In July 2023 and November 2024, Digital Leaders from the primary and secondary programmes submitted questions for the Digital Champions to answer about the role they play and about online safety in general. Watch the videos below to see how they responded!

November 2024

July 2023

Click on the photos below to learn more about our inspiring Digital Champions!

Dominik

What I like doing best online:

I like gaming online.

What I like doing offline:

Offline, I like travelling.

What I hope to achieve as a Digital Champion:

In Digital Champions, I hope to achieve safety online and to help companies build their security software to higher demand.

My top online safety tip:

My safety tip is to ignore other people who talk with you online and talk to your friends that you know in real life.

Eimear

What I like doing best online?

I enjoy watching different movies and tv shows and I enjoy watching Brooklyn 99 another thing I like doing is playing music on deezer and YouTube music. I also know how to crochet so I like looking up different ideas on patterns.

What I like doing offline?

I enjoy playing Gaelic football, crocheting and am a volunteer for my local youth club with that I was recently appointed chairperson of the youth board and I also enjoy being outdoors as it is calming.

What would I like to achieve as a digital champion?

I would love to help bring new ideas of ways we can improve the website and be able to teach other people about internet safety.

My top online safety tip?

Well my top online safety tip is for example, on Instagram don’t add back people you don’t know .

Gabrielle

What I like doing best online:

I like to watch shows and movies on online streaming services, my favourite is the Disney+ TV show Criminal Minds. I often watch musicals with my friends, my favourites are Hamilton and Hairspray. I spend most of my time listening to music on Spotify, in this year’s Spotify Wrapped it was shown I had spent 72,900 minutes listening to music on Spotify! You will often find me listening to artists such as Queen, TV Girl, Lana Del Rey, Paris Paloma, and my all-time favourites The Smiths. My favourite song is Bigmouth Strikes Again by The Smiths. I love that song so much and you will often see me listening to it!

What I like doing offline:

While offline I like to participate in my school’s theatre productions and workshops, when I’m not in shows I’m watching them, I often visit my local theatre and watch plays and musicals with my friends and family. I also love to play music; I can play viola and violin and I’m in my school’s orchestra and string quartet. I’m the most confident in my viola and I’m the only viola player in my school so I’m often busy with lessons, exams, and orchestra. My favourite thing to do with my viola is to play duets with my best friend who plays piano, we often play together for fun!

What I hope to achieve as a Digital Champion:

I hope to educate as many people as possible on the advantages and disadvantages of the online world. I hope to help keep as many people as possible safe online by educating them and sharing information with them. I also hope to inspire future digital leaders and possible future digital champions and also spread information and stories of women in tech and help motivate young people to get into tech and computing without worry and be able to have the opportunities to do so.

My top online safety tip:

My top tip for staying safe online is to not share anything that you wouldn’t want out on the internet forever. Always remember that once things are posted online or shared online it is near impossible to fully erase from the internet. Digital footprints are very real and can affect you years from now. For example, you could lose your job because of something you posted years ago. Even if you meant it as a joke or didn’t mean it, it is still out there and can come back up to bite you years later.

Jayden

What I like doing best online:

Online, I love listening to music on my phone. It helps me to de-stress, especially after a long day at college! I like researching about gaming consoles and tips and tricks about computers! I also love learning about how to improve at photography, which is a hobby of mine and a subject I study at college.

What I like doing offline:

At college, I am a part of our technical crew, working in various roles, from live sound to creating props, to ensure quality and immersion in all areas, such as in sound for the productions at our college’s theatre. I also really love photography and learning about the many ways I can optimise my photographs in order to create really engaging pictures! In addition, I have a passion for baking, and I love making cheesecake, especially at Christmas!

What I hope to achieve as a Digital Champion:

My goals as a Digital Champion with Childnet are to educate myself on online safety to an extent where I am able to confidently assist with teaching many people: this is not just other children, but advise adults and important individuals on how us young people feel on certain situations, and how we would want a scenario to be handled or amended to represent us in a positive light, not just in front of one business, but on a wider scale, both nationally and internationally. I also would love to be able to build a better future for all young people, including generations to come, and keep both national and global organisations on their toes with regards to updating acts protecting young people online.

My top online safety tip:

My top online safety tip is to always talk to someone you trust, whether it be a teacher, parent, or any other trusted adult, if something worrying happens to you on the web. It is essential for the wellbeing of anyone to talk to others, and a statement I like to use is “A problem shared is a problem halved,” as this is a reminder of the fact that no matter how old you are, how wise you are or how independent you seem, you’ll never be able to live life without somebody to lean on.

Jeremy

What I like doing best online:

What I like doing online is creating/producing sketches and a bit of programming too.

What I like doing offline:

What I like to do offline is play on my piano creating my type of piece.

What I hope to achieve as a Digital Champion:

What I hope to achieve as a Digital Champion is to help kids, young adults, and adults understand the dangers of using the Internet and a device; how to handle them well and how to resolve them too.

My top online safety tip:

Be safe wherever you are, whether it’s an app or website that you know or not. There may be things that can make your day a horrible one.

“The programme has given me the confidence that I can make a difference.”

Amy, Secondary Digital Leader

Get started with a free trial

Help us work towards an outstanding whole school community approach to online safety.