Module & Timelines
Module 1: Understanding Childhood & Child Development
Dates: 05 - 15 May 2026
Module 2: Working With Children
Dates: 19 - 29 May 2026
- Focuses on ethical, respectful, and meaningful ways of engaging children as active participants, not passive recipients. It emphasises safeguarding, power dynamics, and culturally grounded approaches to working with children across diverse African contexts
Learning Outcomes
- To increase understanding of emerging threats to children in digital environments.
- To evaluate tools and practices for addressing new safety challenges in the Global South.
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To design proactive strategies to enhance digital safety.
Module 3: Designing for Children
Dates: 02 - 12 June 2026
- Introduces child-centred design principles that prioritise children’s safety, dignity, and agency from the start. It explores how to design digital products and experiences that are intuitive, inclusive, and relevant to African children’s everyday realities.
Objectives:
- To introduce human-centred, child-centred, and safety-by-design approaches.
- To develop best practices in designing safe and engaging technology for children.
- To integrate participatory design processes involving children.
Learning Outcomes:
- To create prototypes following child-centred design principles.
- To apply safety-by-design frameworks in digital tools.
- To identify and analyse the role of children in participatory design.
Module 4: AI and Children in the Global South
Dates: 16 - 26 June 2026
- This module unpacks how AI systems are shaping children’s lives across the Global South, often without their realities being considered. It challenges fellows to critically examine bias, access, and equity, and to imagine AI that serves and protects African children.
Learning Outcomes:
- To understand how AI impacts children’s safety in digital spaces.
- To evaluate AI models from a Global South perspective.
- To have enhanced understanding and skills in designing and training AI models for children in the Global South.
Module 5: Emerging Trends in Digital Safety
Dates: 14 - 24 July 2026
- Explores current and evolving digital risks affecting children, including platform design, content exposure, and online behaviours. Equips fellows to design proactive, prevention-focused solutions grounded in the WATOTO Framework.
- This module is structured around a single guiding image — the playground. We open by examining what play is, what it gives children developmentally, and how the ecological techno-subsystem reshapes children's lives.
Expected Learning Outcomes:
By the end of this module, the learner should be able to:
- Identify the major categories of emerging digital harm affecting children in the Global South, including deepfakes, online grooming, sextortion, AI-facilitated bullying, and synthetic media abuse.
- Apply the 5Cs Framework (Content, Contact, Conduct, Contract, Control) to analyse the digital risk profile of a given product.
- Apply WATOTO Standards 6 (BARAZA) and 10 (HARAMBEE) to AI accountability and infrastructure equity decisions.
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