Oman celebrates Safer Internet Day 2018

The Sultanate of Oman, represented by the Information Technology Authority (ITA), joined the rest of the world in celebrating Safer Internet Day recently, which this year took place on Tuesday, 6 February 2018. More than 140 countries celebrated this international day, with events and activities taking place under this year's theme of "Create, connect and share respect: A better internet starts with you".

Date 2018-02-22 Author Oman Safer Internet Day Committee
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On this occasion, ITA, represented by Oman National CERT, organised a one-day event at Muscat Grand Mall from 5pm-10pm including a number of educational activities and workshops, targeting parents, adults and kids from 5 to 18 years old. Besides that, an exhibition of supporter government agencies took place in order to link the official entities in the country with the people. In addition, a number of messages were shared through ITA's social media accounts under the hashtag #SID2018 to raise awareness on cyber security and promote a culture of proper use of the internet among adults. The campaign also aimed to address internet risks for children and young people and the best ways to deal with them, as well as to highlight the legal aspects in the use of the internet in general and social media channels specifically.

Both parents and children were provided with awareness tips on safer internet
and child online protection

Table 1: Event schedule

  • 17:00- 17:10 SID 2018 event opening – OCERT welcoming note
  • 17:10- 17:20  Event sponsor welcoming note
  • 17:20- 17:35 Internet safety in sign language by Oman Association for the hearing impaired
  • 17:35- 18:05 Prize draw and break
  • 18:05- 18:35 Educational stage activity for kids: an introduction to the internet
  • 18:35- 18:50 Safe browsing awareness session presented by school students
  • 18:50- 19:00 Prize draw
  • 19:00- 20:00 Parents awareness session
  • 20:00- 20:10 Awarding the participating organisations and SID supporters
  • 20:10- 20:15 Prize draw
  • 20:15- 20:40 Educational stage activity for kids: Respect in the virtual world
  • 20:40-20:45 Prize draw
  • 20:45- 21:15 Educational stage activity for kids: Passwords
  • 21:15- 21:20 Prize draw
  • 21:20- 21:50 Closing stage activity: "Create, connect and share respect: A better internet starts with you"
  • 21:50- 22:00 Prize draw and awarding volunteers and supporters

The five-hour-long event benefited from full engagement from public and private sectors in the country, as well as participation from civil society. For instance, a dynamic team of volunteers from the Oman Association for the hearing impaired conducted a sign language awareness session, and children from A'Seeb International School in Muscat presented tips on safe online browsing in front of their peers.

Interactive educational game as part of the SID event

Volunteers from the Oman Association for the hearing impaired

Parents and children took part in interactive discussions with SID supporters

Moreover, Oman National CERT successfully managed to translate a SID educational presentation, as created by the UK Safer Internet Centre (SIC), into Arabic, and shared the content with more than 1,000 schools in the Sultanate. The translated presentations are available on the CERT website. In addition, for the two weeks following SID, a number of school awareness programmes have been delivered to promote this year's SID key messages among young people.

A sample of the translated SID 2018 presentation for kids

A short video from the event can be seen below:

Visit the Oman Safer Internet Day Committee profile page for further information.

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