Beyond parental controls: How Rotterdam’s ChatLicense empowers kids in the digital age

ChatLicense, a Dutch startup that helps kids and parents navigate online life, won the Global Impact Challenge hosted by Singularity University and SYNC Ithra earlier this month. The challenge sought to crown a startup developing solutions in the fields of misinformation, cyberbullying, and social polarisation, and ChatLicense won out of more than 500 global entries.

Pew Research found that parents find parenting harder today than it was two decades ago and they mainly cite technologies such as smartphones or social media as a reason. While parents are willing to give their kids smartphones, they are worried about their intended use. Marjolein van Tilburg, who co-founded ChatLicense with Martine de Leeuw and Jasper Wessels in 2022, is no different.

Van Tilburg says her daughter and her first smartphone motivated her to create ChatLicense. “The first weeks she started using the device, I noticed how she and her friends used it quite differently than I had anticipated,” she says.

She likens the conversation Gen Alpha, those born between 2010 and 2024, have with their peers to that of a Wild West situation. While restricting screen time or grounding kids can have negative effects, Van Tilburg found a solution that not only brings moderation but also improves digital well-being. It’s called ChatLicense.

Licence to chat

ChatLicense is like a driver’s licence. When kids get their first smartphone, ChatLicense becomes the first app on their device. Like a driver’s licence, the app starts by teaching kids what they will experience on their phones and helps them learn how to deal with certain situations.

“The program is based on a scientific method to install media literate behaviour,” explains Van Tilburg.

In order to make learning fun and engaging, ChatLicense combines the journey with film, animations, and quiz questions. The idea is that by the time they complete their media literacy on the app, the kids are prepared for a digital world where they will engage by chatting, gaming, surfing the web, social media, online payments, cyber fraud, fake news, and other online influences.

While the app is aimed at kids, it also helps parents deal with their digital natives. Van Tilburg says they designed the app to be a digital learning platform for kids but parents are not left out. The app offers information and support parents need in this digital age since “we are the first generation of parents who have this added responsibility.”

The harm caused by social media is well documented and parents often tend to restrict access or take phones away as a way to protect their kids. While it is counterintuitive, the parental controls built into most smartphones haven’t proven to be entirely effective either. With its science-backed learning approach, ChatLicense is helping both kids and parents navigate a digital world where kids use technology and apps differently than their parents.

ChatLicense 2.0

As a B2B2C platform, ChatLicense works mainly with telecom operators, smartphone manufacturers, banks and municipalities to reach a large user base. “As all of them have a large customer base, with enough of these partnerships we reach all families, country by country and language by language,” says Van Tilburg.

I feel calling ChatLicense an app does a great disservice to the product that Van Tilburg and her team have built. It is a family tech solution that empowers parents and their kids to use their phones effectively and reliably. With a $250,000 cash prize from the Global Impact Challenge win, the startup is already setting its sights on scaling its solution.

“While introducing the smartphone later, screen time, and the right settings are all crucial, we know it’s not enough. We can give children a better start online by teaching them all about what they can expect as soon as they get their first smartphone, and that’s exactly what ChatLicense does for families,” co-founder De Leeuw says about the win.

Van Tilburg sees the victory as an important validation of their solution in Silicon Valley, the heart of technology. While De Leeuw gave the pitch, Van Tilburg says even the capital of tech realises that humans will play a crucial role even as tech continues to develop and adds that the cash prize will help them develop version 2.0 of ChatLicense while also enabling them to scale and deepen their data science approach.

The Rotterdam solution

ChatLicense is a quintessential Rotterdam venture, delivering a solution in one of the four key transition areas and making it happen with a clear focus on science and data. While it helps that both Van Tilburg and Wessels studied in Rotterdam and the startup has its HQ in Rotterdam,the real difference comes in the form of support and partnership.

Van Tilburg tells me that Erasmus University, one of the leading research universities in the Netherlands, is their scientific partner. The startup also counts the City of Rotterdam as a partner from the start, even before the app went live when the startup made it to billboards all over the city as part of “Rotterdam Digital Metropolis.”

She further adds the City Council of Rotterdam is invested in youth and supporting the next generation through Be The Future Festival. Rotterdam’s Digital Inclusion team gave school kids access to ChatLicense at the beginning of the school year as a digital well-being initiative.

When you make it happen, the ecosystem always helps but in the case of ChatLicense, Rotterdam has not only been a backbone but has also opened the door to many other opportunities. Van Tilburg says the “support of the Rotterdam ecosystem really came into motion” after their win at Upstream Festival.

During Upstream Festival 2024, Van Tilburg took part in the VIP roundtable on diversity and inclusion alongside Jörgen Raymann while back in 2022, the festival’s ‘Meet The Buyer’ event helped them meet KPN, which became ChatLicense’s first customer.

“It opened the door to many opportunities, such as participating in the Entrepreneurship World Cup in Riyadh. There, together with two fantastic other startups Kumasi and Pal, we were able to present our app on a global stage,” she says, before adding, “It is amazing to be able to say that we are in the top 8 of best growth stage startups of the world.”

Connected generations

The startup world can often look like a lonely place for women entrepreneurs but Van Tilburg, who has a background as a litigation lawyer, says she isn’t intimidated easily. A believer in the saying “It takes a village to raise a child,” Van Tilburg says Rotterdam feels like a village even though it is a city and calls it “our village” and a support system.

With the support of the port city and a capable team behind her, she says they are looking to a future where ChatLicense is the first app on every child’s first smartphone around the world. “This way we tackle the root cause of many issues families encounter,” she adds.

With ChatLicense as a starting point, she not only envisions enabling a safe and sane digital environment for kids but also relieved and supported parents. The net result, she says, is connected generations showcasing “Happy Cyber Vibes” and ends by saying this result is only possible if they all go “hand in hand.”