Google will train Colombian families on safety, a US$150,000 investment at the first Cumbre de Niños y Familias (Children and Families Summit) in Colombia on April 22, 2026, to finance “Modo Presente,” a digital safety program developed by the Fundacion Estrategia Pais that targets more than 6,000 families in Colombia and Peru before the end of 2026, placing the initiative inside a country where 65.6% of households already have internet access but where no specific regulation yet governs how children and adolescents use it.
The investment lands in a concrete national context: Colombia reached 10.2 million fixed internet connections in the third quarter of 2025, according to MinTIC (the Ministerio de Tecnologías de la Información y las Comunicaciones), and more than 90% of Colombians aged 5 and older access the internet primarily through a mobile phone, figures that confirm the scale of an issue Modo Presente addresses at the household level rather than waiting for a regulatory solution from Bogotá.
From screen bans to active accompaniment in the home
Modo Presente’s central argument is that restriction without dialogue has not worked, and the program builds its entire methodology around replacing that approach with active accompaniment: a model in which parents, caregivers, and educators guide children through digital environments rather than blocking access to them, using tools designed for adults who are themselves often less digitally literate than the adolescents they supervise.
The practical toolkit the Fundación Estrategia País developed includes a digital guide with reflection exercises, simulations of everyday online risk scenarios, and conversation frameworks covering three specific concerns: screen time, data privacy, and algorithmic content (content that software platforms choose for the user based on behavior patterns rather than explicit selection), giving adults a concrete vocabulary for topics that most households discuss in vague or reactive terms.
Irene Velandia, Google’s senior manager of Public Policy and Government Relations for the Andean region, described the program’s objective in direct terms: “This support will allow more families to dialogue and take control of their experience with technology, supporting children and adolescents to explore, learn, and create,” a formulation that positions Modo Presente as a capacity-building initiative rather than a surveillance or restriction tool.
400 ambassadors and YouTube’s role in delivery
The reach target of 6,000 families requires a distribution mechanism that US$150,000 alone cannot finance at volume, and the program solves that gap through a Red de Embajadores Digitales (Digital Ambassadors Network): 400 trained volunteers, already in their initial modules as of April 2026, who will replicate the Modo Presente methodology in schools, parent associations, and community organizations across both countries, extending the investment’s reach through institutional channels that the program itself does not have to fund directly.
YouTube’s participation adds a second layer to the active accompaniment model: the platform presented a guide at the same summit for content creators who produce material aimed at adolescents, recommending practices for responsible consumption, while also promoting Family Link, a parental supervision application that allows adults to manage screen time and content categories; Isaac Ochoa, leader of Health and Youth at YouTube SPLATAM, described the goal as “balancing access with tools that allow parents to manage both the time and the type of content their children consume.”
What a US$150,000 program cannot replace
Even so, industry tools and a community ambassador network address the household dimension of a problem that structural policy has not yet resolved at scale; the next phase depends on what Colombia’s regulatory framework produces, since the Ministerio TIC is currently drafting a decree to implement Law 2489 of 2025, Colombia’s child online protection statute, with a national monitoring committee that would require technology platforms to report annually on cases involving minors in digital risk situations.
Reaching 6,000 families in a country with 10.2 million fixed internet connections and tens of millions of mobile users is a start, not a solution; Modo Presente, YouTube’s creator guidelines, and the Ministerio TIC’s pending decree each target a distinct piece of the same problem, and Colombia needs all three running at the same time: the decree sets the floor, the ambassador network reaches households the law cannot touch directly, and the industry tools give parents something practical to use before any regulation takes effect.