![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cybersecurity.bournemouth.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/MicrosoftTeams-image-2_0.png\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\nThe winner of the game is the first to collect tokens relating to all these themes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cResearch shows that the average age of digital independence in the UK \u2013 when parents allow their children to use digital devices unsupervised and with less security – is 10 years old,\u201d explained Jane Henriksen-Bulmer<\/a>, Principal Academic in Privacy within the Department of Computing and Informatics at BU, who led the project. \u201cYet most parents spend less than an hour talking to their children about online safety and privacy in the whole of their childhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “CyGamBit has therefore been designed for children aged between 8 and 12 to address this gap and encourage that conversation between both parents and children and the children themselves through passive learning, the children learn through play,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe really want to get this knowledge out there to these young people before it becomes a problem, so they have their digital health and wellbeing embedded in their understanding before they are allowed out on their own,\u201d said Emily Rosennorn-Lanng, one of the research team on the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe also want to encourage that conversation, both between young people themselves but also with their parents and teachers. Working with them from the start means that we have created a game based around what they need, rather than us deciding what they should learn.\u201d she continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Importantly the game is a live service, meaning that the team can always update the questions when new threats to online security come along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The original project was funded by UKRI\u2019s Higher Education Innovation Funding programme and created a CyGamBIT board game prototype during the Covid pandemic, with some very positive results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Based on the success of the board game, the team later received funding from another Government agency, Innovate UK, to participate in CyberASAP<\/a> – a programme that helps academics commercialise their research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This funding led to the creation a digital version of the game, CyGamBIT, which the team demonstrated in London on 22 February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is now being trialled by local schoolchildren and on 6th March AFC Bournemouth brought in a group of junior players \u2013 the Digital Stars \u2013 to campus, for an IT careers and study talk, after which they got the chance to put their characters through their paces in CyGamBit\u2019s world of cyber security. You can find out more about their visit in the video below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cybersecurity.bournemouth.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/CyGamBIT-Junior-Cherries-Lower-Res-2.jpg\")
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