Telenor Group, the parent company of Grameenphone, has projected that around 50 million Bangladeshi children will access the internet through mobile phone for the first time in the next one decade. A Telenor press release issued on Monday said the group was projecting around 500 million children in Asia would be introduced to internet in the next 10 years while 85 million of them would come under the internet use in the next three years.
Telenor Asian operations head, Sigve Brekke, also chairman of Grameenphone, said that the opportunities of the internet do not come without risks.
‘Telenor started in Asia two decades ago from Bangladesh with a fundamental belief that mobile is for everyone. Now, the mass market is moving towards mobile internet and we are determined to bring internet for all,’ he said.
The latest data from the Boston Consulting Group on internet use among children showed that eight per cent children were unknowingly subscribed to commercial services, one in 10 had potentially been subjected to personal data misuse, one in five potentially exposed to harmful content, and half of underage users might have been exposed to cyberbullying.
Telenor Group has created a mobile internet filter for protecting children from sexually abusive content in collaboration with the Interpol, said the press release.
It said that its Bangladesh outlet had already been using the filter while other Asian outlets of the group were developing the model.
Grameenphone recently launched a programme to provide 21 lakh free internet hours for schoolchildren in collaboration with development organisation Brac in around 250 schools across Bangladesh.
-With New Age input
