Teenagers pick up tips on cyber security, coding through games

Participants at the coding and cyber-security workshop at Bank of Singapore's office in Raffles Place yesterday. For the AR activity, students used an app on a tablet to "scan" posters of video games put up on a wall, before watching a video and answ
Participants at the coding and cyber-security workshop at Bank of Singapore's office in Raffles Place yesterday. For the AR activity, students used an app on a tablet to "scan" posters of video games put up on a wall, before watching a video and answering a quiz. The 13 Montfort Secondary School students who attended the workshop are beneficiaries of Shine Children and Youth Services, which helps underprivileged children with learning and socio-emotional difficulties. ST PHOTO: NG SOR LUAN

Bank of Singapore, the private banking arm of OCBC Bank, held its first coding and cyber-security workshop yesterday for 13 teenagers aged between 14 and 15 from Montfort Secondary School.

The workshop adds to an increasing number of digital awareness initiatives launched in Singapore in recent months targeted at youth, ahead of a 10-hour coding programme to be rolled out for all upper primary pupils next year.

The two-hour programme at the Bank of Singapore office in Raffles Place featured augmented reality (AR) technology, videos and games to educate the youth, who are beneficiaries of Shine Children and Youth Services, which helps underprivileged children with learning and socio-emotional difficulties.

Some 35 Bank of Singapore staff volunteers helped to organise and run the workshop.

For the AR activity, the teenagers had to use an app on a tablet to "scan" physical posters of popular video games pinned up on a wall.

Upon moving the tablet over a particular poster, a video containing some basic information about cyber security would start to play. The teens later had to answer a quiz based on what they had watched.

Another activity had them playing a video game called CodeCombat, in which they had to move a virtual character around and make it perform actions by inputting lines of code.

Bank of Singapore innovation solution engineer Chandan Banga, who was part of the team that developed the AR app in-house, said: "Nowadays, kids find learning in the traditional ways very boring, so we wanted to try something different.

"Topics like cyber security are important not only for kids but for everyone. One of the things we found out while putting together the cyber-security component was how many colleagues weren't aware of how to create a strong password, for example."

The teenagers are part of a Shine leadership programme called Youth Community Outreach Patrol, which brings together schools, students and the police to develop leaderships skills among youth. Among other activities, students follow police officers on patrol or join crime-prevention road shows.

A Shine spokesman said knowledge of coding is relevant for the youth's future, especially when they enter the workforce. He added that it was important for teenagers to be aware of the dangers online, given how they use technology and the Internet for a large part of the day.

Bank of Singapore's workshop follows the My Digital Bootcamp programme, which was launched earlier this month.

United Overseas Bank donated $500,000 in support of the programme, which aims to help some 1,000 upper primary pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds in the Central Singapore District pick up creative skills using technology.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on September 10, 2019, with the headline Teenagers pick up tips on cyber security, coding through games. Subscribe