Students urged to make smart digital choices

Flow Trinidad joined the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty in ob­serv­ing Safer In­ter­net Day 2026 yes­ter­day with a re­newed fo­cus on per­son­al dig­i­tal re­spon­si­bil­i­ty un­der the theme: “Smart Tech, Safe Choic­es – Ex­plor­ing the Safe and Re­spon­si­ble Use of AI”.

Safer In­ter­net Day pro­motes safer, more re­spon­si­ble and more in­clu­sive use of on­line tech­nolo­gies. This year’s theme un­der­scores the im­por­tance of eth­i­cal, mind­ful de­ci­sion-mak­ing as smart tech­nolo­gies, in­clud­ing ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence, be­come in­creas­ing­ly in­te­grat­ed in­to every­day life.

Flow’s Vice Pres­i­dent and Gen­er­al Man­ag­er, Si­mone Mar­tin-Sul­gan, ad­dressed one hun­dred stu­dents at Fyz­abad Sec­ondary School and said, “as a tele­coms provider, our role is to cre­ate a se­cure, re­silient net­work – one that pro­tects your da­ta, sup­ports safe plat­forms, and helps keep com­mu­ni­ties con­nect­ed. But even the strongest net­work can’t re­place good judg­ment, kind­ness, and in­tegri­ty’. She added, “con­nec­tiv­i­ty is no longer a lux­u­ry – it’s a life­line. And be­hind that con­nec­tion are tele­coms providers whose job is to keep you linked to in­for­ma­tion, op­por­tu­ni­ty, and each oth­er – safe­ly and re­li­ably.”

Mar­tin-Sul­gan chal­lenged the stu­dents to re­mem­ber that “con­nec­tiv­i­ty opens doors. Tech­nol­o­gy cre­ates pos­si­bil­i­ties. But your choic­es shape the fu­ture. Be brave. Be cu­ri­ous. Be eth­i­cal. Be safe. Be re­spon­si­ble. And use the pow­er of con­nec­tion – not just to stay on­line – but to stand for what’s right.”

Man­ag­er Com­mu­ni­ca­tions of the Bankers As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Dix­ie Ann Dick­son, said, “for the past six years, the Bankers As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (BATT) has part­nered with Flow to em­pow­er young peo­ple with the knowl­edge they need to nav­i­gate the dig­i­tal world safe­ly. Safer In­ter­net Day is more than a con­ver­sa­tion about on­line ac­tiv­i­ty; it is about equip­ping our youth with the knowl­edge, con­fi­dence and aware­ness to make in­formed dig­i­tal and fi­nan­cial de­ci­sions that sup­port in­clu­sion, op­por­tu­ni­ty, and long-term suc­cess. BATT re­mains com­mit­ted to strength­en­ing cy­ber aware­ness and en­sur­ing that young peo­ple are pre­pared to par­tic­i­pate safe­ly and re­spon­si­bly in the dig­i­tal fi­nan­cial ecosys­tem.”

The part­ner­ship be­tween Flow, the Bankers As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go and lo­cal NGO El­e­vate Ed­u­ca­tion al­lowed one hun­dred stu­dents of Fyz­abad Sec­ondary School to ben­e­fit from the ex­per­tise of cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty pro­fes­sion­als.

Speak­ers in­clud­ed Shamir Sad­dler, Founder and CEO of Smart­Term; Daren Dho­ray, Founder of Cy­ber­SafeTT, Dig­i­tal An­thro­pol­o­gist and Cy­ber Safe­ty Evan­ge­list; Sher­win Forte, Man­ag­er, Cor­po­rate Se­cu­ri­ty, Op­er­a­tional Risk, Re­pub­lic Bank and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Bankers As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T; and Yolande Spencer, IT Se­cu­ri­ty Op­er­a­tions Of­fi­cer, Re­pub­lic Bank and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Bankers As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T.

Pre­sen­ters ad­dressed top­ics in­clud­ing Dig­i­tal Foot­print and On­line Safe­ty; AI and Smart Tech­nol­o­gy; and On­line Em­pa­thy, Kind­ness and Safe­ty. They guid­ed stu­dents through the con­cept of a dig­i­tal foot­print and safe so­cial me­dia us­age with re­al-life ex­am­ples of pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive on­line be­hav­iour. They ex­plained AI in every­day apps such as chat­bots and fil­ters, along with re­spon­si­ble AI use, and en­gaged stu­dents in frank dis­cus­sions on cy­ber­bul­ly­ing, mis­in­for­ma­tion and rep­re­sen­ta­tion.