Press release May 28, 2002

Everybody is talking about the negative influence of the new media on children – Leipzig takes action
Guaranteed protection from critical internet contents

The biggest mass sports event of the world closed its gates last Saturday. More than 100,000 participants in this sports event had the possibility to surf the internet in the schools where they were accommodated and to send eMails to their friends and relatives. Children and young people could use the internet safely without supervision in order to call up their competition results as well as information about Leipzig, Saxony and various regional offers. More than 130 internet addresses provided a lot of interesting information. At the same time none of the young sportsmen could view any pages about violence or child pornography.

This guarantee was given by the Nutzwerk company from Leipzig that received the Roland Berger Strategy Consultants innovation price in 2001. With 7 patent applications within 2 years this seems to be an extraordinary think tank. With their solution SaferSurf School Nutzwerk provides teachers with a tool that allows them to determine what is shown on the student's monitors. No student will be able to play online games, send SMS or load music files from the internet during lessons if the teacher does not want it. But the teacher can also release all possibilities of the internet – it is up to him.

The advantage of this security solution for students is that the internet can now be used in every teaching subject. Finally even teachers without profound computer knowledge can use the internet for subjects like geography, biology or english. They do not have to be afraid that they are being outwitted in the last row. When they start their lesson, all they have to do is to click once on their "textbook from the internet" and then lean back. Only internet addresses that are relevant for the lesson are released. The teachers can either research and enter the pages themselves or use the service: www.schlauesweb.de where they can find ready-to-use quality "textbooks from the internet". The students do not lose time by searching pages for their topic and in addition they can hand in wonderful project works with pictures and texts from the internet.

The city of Leipzig had planned a pilot project with 10 schools. During the sports meeting 55 schools were equipped with SaferSurf. 30 schools want to use the system permanently for their lessons.

The city of Halle will also start a SaferSurf School project for the safe use of the internet in school. The city marketing group is going to sponsor the safety solution for 10 schools over one year.