Education and young people are the keys to a “responsible digital future,” defended the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry and Meghan, in Colombia where they advance a visit focused on cyberbullying and online violence.

The dukes participated in the Responsible Digital Future Forum in Bogotá, where together with the vice president and minister of Equality of Colombia, Francia Márquez, and the journalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa, they addressed technological challenges and how to build a digital future that works for all people, taking into account the most vulnerable.

“Artificial Intelligence (AI) is scary, and one of the solutions is education, since it is becoming increasingly difficult to stop this force from the source. It is up to us to determine the true of the false” in the digital world, said the Duke of Sussex.

The prince added that they were impressed with the visit they made to a school in the Colombian capital with the children and “the knowledge and awareness they have,” and concluded that: “responsibility and accountability are the things that I think would make the most difference” for a more responsible digital future.

“When you look at the statistics, young people in Latin America review social networks above the average, a total of 67 times a day (…) The digital age has created a culture in which if you don’t have something cruel, don’t say it, and that has radically changed the way we relate,” lamented the Duchess of Sussex.

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In this sense, Meghan spoke from her mother’s perspective, being concerned about “how our children are going to adapt and how to keep them safe” in the digital age, something that has been “fundamental” in the activism that the couple is the flag.

“We have a responsibility to be an example for children,” the Duchess insisted.

“In this country young people are committing suicide, and many times it is the fault of social networks where they suffer harassment (…) When I reached the Vice Presidency I did not measure to what I was exposing myself, the amount of aggressions and violence that I have had to endure in these two years, not only me but my children and my partner, it is huge, many times I hate with severity,” lamented Márquez, who also attributed online violence to “the lack of laws.”

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry and Meghan, began a four-day visit to Colombia this Thursday, where they will tour different parts of the country, learn about their biodiverse culture and wealth, and address current problems such as cyberbullying and online violence in schools and forums.

The duke and the duchess visited, along with the Colombian vice president, on their first day a school in the south of Bogotá, where they talked with students and teachers about how digital in education transforms lives and the importance of technology to close social gaps.

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The visit “aims to open doors and lay doors to make visible and address a problem that today concerns all humanity: cyberbullying, violence in digital environments and discrimination,” the vice president told the media at a press conference at the Casa de Nariño (presidential headquarters).

But this visit, which is the first made by the dukes to Latin America and that occurs after the mother of the prince of Harry, Lady Di, did not make the trip she had planned to Colombia due to her hasty death, is “a great opportunity to visit our nation and show what we Colombians and Colombians are: people who in the midst of adversity do their best to give their best,” Márquez explained.

The visit will continue tomorrow with a tour of another school in Bogotá and from there on Saturday and Sunday the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will leave first for Cartagena de Indias, where they will be in San Basilio de Palenque, the first free town in Colombia, and on Sunday the city of Cali.