Globe Telecom’s Digital Thumbprint Program spreads to more schools and communities through employee volunteerism

Globe employee volunteers in Vismin with University of Mindanao student leaders

Globe Telecom’s Digital Thumbprint Program (DTP) spreads to more schools and communities in various parts of the country as employee volunteers act as mentors to create a generation of responsible digital citizens.

Since the start of this year, a number of Globe employees fondly called “Ka-Globe Ambassadors” have held talks in various educational institutions in Mindanao such as at the La Salle Academy in Iligan City and the University of Mindanao in Davao City. These talks were all well-attended, particularly by Grade 10 and college students, respectively, of these schools.

In Metro Manila, Ka-Globe Ambassadors talked about the program in two different occasions which were attended by PLAN International’s community facilitators, as well as the humanitarian organization’s youth facilitators and community student leaders.

Launched in 2016, DTP has become a venue for Ka-Globe Ambassadors to share their knowledge with the students about the proper way of using the internet so that these young citizens can protect themselves against criminal elements lurking online while at the same time, be guided in achieving their life goals.

“I always find teaching as a Ka-Globe DTP Ambassador to be a very enriching and fulfilling experience.  Not everyone is given the opportunity and the venue to share and influence our youth in matters that are critical in shaping our community and I feel very privileged to be able to carry out this responsibility,” said Chari Javelosa. 

She added: “It is very important that we are able to foster responsible digital citizenship as people are spending so much time on the digital space and more and more of our decisions and actions are being based on the information we find online.”

Chari is just one of the growing number of Globe volunteers which reached an all-time high of 52.8 percent of the total employee base in 2017.

Another Ka-Globe Ambassador, Jim Lubguban from Iligan City, said he is “more energized” after every class.  “Teaching is exhilarating, I never feel more energized than after a class that has gone well. It was rewarding for me to impart knowledge to the students and to make them realize the importance of being accountable for their actions related to our Program on the digital thumbprint,” he said.

Globe is one of the country’s few companies that nurture its people’s innate desire to help by providing every employee with one day of “volunteer time-off” every year to pursue their chosen advocacy. It also encourages “volunteaming” where employees are free to organize themselves in groups to pursue their advocacies.

DTP includes four learning modules, namely Digital Insight, Digital Impact, Digital Ambition, and Digital Discernment which are conceptualized and designed to increase students’ knowledge of digital citizenship and cyber safety. The modules involve taking a careful look at the online behavior of kids and helping them develop insights on how the online world can influence them in making choices.

The program’s goals of promoting the responsible use of the internet and protecting the safety of the students have indeed become an effective tool based on a study conducted by Nielsen in 2017 which showed an increase in the number of students practicing at least one security measure to protect their information online, a large reduction in the number of those who have random interaction with strangers online, and a significant increase in the number of students who are now aware of how their online information is used by websites and apps.

In an assessment made by Karrikins Group on the DTP, it was also noted that students who attended the workshops were highly satisfied with the program. All the teachers agreed that their students were highly engaged in their sessions.

For more information, visit Globe Digital Thumbprint Program and FB Globe BridgeCom.