The CEO and founder of Child Protection Initiative against Cybercrime, Delmwa Gogwim, has cautioned teenagers against indulging in cybercrime and other acts that can destroy their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She gave the advice Friday at a Teen-Tech mentorship programme she organized for students of public and private secondary schools as part of activities to mark World Innovation and Creativity Day and International Day for Girls in ICT in Abuja.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to her, the programme is a launch of awards for children in creativity and innovation which will take place in September this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She said the programme was aimed at protecting the child not to indulge in cybercrime and not to be a victim of cybercrime. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur programmes are geared towards making the child creative. The question is if you are telling me not to do this, what else can I do. So we create programmes that make the best of the child; creativity, innovation. This is the kind of programme that we do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTeenagers are full of innovations but they need to be guided and mentored. We bought some mentors like Dr Charles Ekwueme who invented Africa\u2019s first humanoid robot, Kemisola Bolarinwa who invented a bra that can diagnose breast cancer and other people that are doing well in the digital economy sector to mentor and inspire them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWith all these people there is no way that a child will not learn one or two things from them. We have children from public and private schools, we have orphans. We target orphans as well as a special part of our programme. Sometimes they orphans don\u2019t have mentorship but we are going to be breeding some of the biggest innovators from our orphanages,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While lamenting the prevalence of cybercrime in our society, she said she is determined to correct the negative trend by equipping the youth to be innovators through proper mentorship. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cJust last week the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crime Commission EFCC did a video of an Institute where primary school pupils are being trained in yahoo yahoo. If children in primary schools are being recruited to be trained, we are many steps backwards. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat we are doing now is to correct that. We can\u2019t allow being a Yahoo Yahoo becomes more popular than being an innovator as a child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFrom this building today we have children from the six geo-political zones because there are children that are participating online, we are going to breed children that are going to be mentors to their own kinds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn a society where yahoo yahoo and other cybercrimes seems to be thriving, that same society can breed children that are innovators and shining examples for their peers.\u201d She said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n