The recent times witnessed a massive surge in the digital consumption by children, which often made parents felt pressured and clueless on finding a digital balance in their child's life. This has highligted the dire need to have a platform that can help parents provide mentorship to their children in today’s digital age. Wranga is one such didgital digital parenting app, which provides an online platform of content ratings, reviews, parenting advice and recommendation, and promoting positive digital consumption. It is a unique ecosystem providing parents the opportunity to not just control but help align the children in the right direction and teach them to use the internet for the good.
Let’s find out how Wranga as a digital parenting app is enabling today’s parents to keep a track of the content their children consume online, in a conversation with Amitabh Kumar, co-founder at Wranga.
How did you conceive the idea to start this venture?
The founding team has experience of over 4 decades in using technology for sustainable development & positivity. I serve on the safety advisory board of large tech firms such as Byte dance, Meta, Twitter, and Netflix. During my course of work over the last decade whenever I met a parent their only question to me would be: How can we decrease the phone usage of our child, they are constantly hooked to the screen. So, this problem stuck with me & the more we dug deeper we realised that it’s a problem faced by every parent on the planet. Problematic interactive media use or Pimu is a global pandemic, to solve this problem Wranga, India & probably the world’s first digital parenting platform was created.
Please elaborate on the technological intervention by Wranga to safeguard children's online safety.
Wranga is a unique company which is developing technology in India and providing it to the world. Our patented rating, review and advisory algorithm, use NLP natural language processing, Computer vision & GAN generative adversarial network technology. To provide age-appropriate guidance to parents on what content/app/game is positive for their child’s growth. For products & services, we do a digital safety audit to ensure they are safe for children to use. In addition, we provide advisory to platforms on minor online safety. We have an interactive app solving all needs of a digital parent.
What has helped the brand to grow, what would be the USP, and what is the current competitive landscape?
Currently, we are the only platform dedicated to child online safety, we are working hard on creating awareness of the need for informed digital parenting. Our USP is the fact that we are mission-driven, super focused and have relevant niche field experience. Understanding the need of parents and children makes us champions of the cause. Also having the most cutting-edge developers helps us create great technology.
How does Wranga enable the parents to monitor their children's internet consumption?
Wranga is building state-of-the-art device control technology, where a parent will be aware of every action their child takes on their smartphone, laptop, or tab. With features like screen time control, the ability to set healthy limits, to allow access to only age-appropriate content, games and apps. Get notified when the child strays, also have real-time advisory on the emerging online trends
Please provide a few tips to the parents on 'How to keep a track of the content their children consume online'?
It all starts with trust in parenting. Trust your child to follow your lead, and be very well informed about the tech options you provide your child. Have an open conversation with them, it’s ok to say No. Be friendly to your child, but remember they lack the experience to make rational decisions, you need to guide them. Wranga is there to provide the information you need, ensure you refer to the app, it will answer all your questions. Children tend to copy their habits and keep their phones away as often as possible. Make sure you focus on them while talking to them & spend focused time. Talk to them about what they like online don’t judge, the more open the conversation the easier it is to help your child interpret the information they have got, in the end, it’s not about what they consume, it’s about how they understand it. You want to build healthy habits towards, positive, informational and growth-oriented experiences.
Wranga also launched a "Responsible Digital Citizenship and Online Safety" report in collabpration with Disney Star India with the key objective of building a safe digital space for the country & youth. The report seeks to bridge a key pedagogical gap in Indian education that stems from an absence of interactive and useful course material to guide students (and their parents) on the meaning, importance and implications of responsible digital citizenship.
What was the objective behind the survey?
To understand the current awareness on topics of Digital citizenship amongst school children. Also, to identify curriculum gaps that can be upgraded to help children become positive digital citizens.
What are the 3 major trends established through this survey about the online safety of children?
Three major trends identified were
1. Children in schools would like to be informed about laws governing the internet.
2. They would like to have more information about emerging internet trends to include in the curriculum
3. They prefer interactive workshops as the most interesting way to study digital citizenship
How can we make the upcoming generations responsible digital citizens?
We need to encourage ownership & accountability towards the Internet amongst school children. For this, we need to involve them in the Digital India movement, by raising awareness amongst them & giving them platforms to express themselves