Google undertakes a lot of social and educational initiatives. This year they have come up with a summer camp for children. Google is also inviting the parents to participate along with their children. Sunita Mohanty, Country Lead & Director (Trust & Safety), Google India, has written an open letter to parents to join their children for the 4-week run up to the camp which will be hosted at Google campus in Gurgaon and Hyderabad.
At the end of the four weeks, up to 100 participants will be flown into either of these campuses along with their parent or guardian. The four assignments will have to be completed in their designated chronological order as the solutions will be linked to previous assignments.
According to Ms Mohanty, the camp is designed to teach children how to be;
- Internet Smart
- Internet Alert
- Internet Strong
- Internet Brave
This is the first time, Google has launched such a program in India.
Google Summer Camp #SummerWithGoogle
The tasks are interesting and challenging. Each one of the four tasks involves using one of Google’s tools to proceed ahead with the task. The children will get to use;
- Google Earth to explore the home of all the Pandas in the world.
- Google Translate to learn phrases in Spanish and other languages.
- Google Arts & Culture to take virtual tours of museums and building their own virtual gallery.
The last assignment will have children building their own simple app. Each of these assignments will also carry questions on the four fundamental codes of being Internet Awesome.
Ms Mohanty also stresses in her letter,
“Each assignment will be linked to the previous one, so its important you take out that one hour in a week, and carry positive marking for every correct answer you give. There will be subjective questions too, that will bring alive every child’s creativity and imagination.”
This exercise is designed to keep the children engaged and help them be responsible and savvy online. The first assignment is already online. The rules and regulations, terms and conditions and all the assignments are live on Google’s events page.
Subsequent assignments will be released on subsequent Mondays and participants will have one week to complete their assignment. The full letter from Ms Sunita Mohanty can be read here.