Digital Readiness Lab
Building a digitally ready generation
We've spent years asking how much, how long and how old. But Australia's children are already living digital lives.
We need to prepare them for what comes with it – the pull, the pressure, what's real and what isn't, and when to ask for help.
The Digital Readiness Lab is an independent organisation that defines, measures and builds Digital Readiness for Australian children, and bring together evidence, organisations, schools, communities and government to build Digital Readiness into childhood.
As featured in
Our thesis
Digital Readiness has to exist everywhere childhood happens.
Children don’t experience digital life in neat categories.
They just have a Tuesday afternoon. A phone on a bus. A group chat that’s gone wrong. A video that made them uncomfortable.
The boundaries between home, school, platforms and the wider world are ours, not theirs.
We can't simply ask children to become digitally ready. Everyone shaping their world has a part to play.
Partner with us →The Digital Readiness Lab
We don't just study Digital Readiness. We define it, and then build it around the child.
The Definition
Digital Readiness is the capabilities children need, and the support around them, as they grow more digitally independent. We build the framework for what "ready" means.
The Measure
The Australian Digital Readiness Index is Australia’s first national measure of children’s Digital Readiness, repeated every year to show what changes and where the gaps remain.
The Evidence
The questions that still need answering. Original research, commissioned studies, and academic partnerships.
The Tools
Evidence-based practices, products, programs and resources built from what we learn.
The Ecosystem
The communities and organisations already shaping children’s digital lives, brought together around the evidence.
The Standard
A shared benchmark for Digital Readiness, so families, schools, industry and government can work towards the same thing.
From evidence to action. Then back to evidence. We measure, we learn, we measure again. What we build evolves as the evidence does.
Adapted from Bioecological model (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006)
The ecosystem
What does your organisation have to do with digital readiness?
Probably more than you think.
Every organisation that touches childhood already plays a part. The Lab helps define what that role can be.
The next question
Does turning 16 automatically mean they're ready for the digital world?
Australia has taken a significant step on age-based protection. But restricting access to social media and preparing children for digital life are two different jobs.
The age limit addresses access to certain social media platforms. Digital Readiness is about the capabilities children need to navigate the wider digital world, and the support around them as they grow more independent.
Readiness has to grow as independence does.
FROM INSIDE THE LAB
What we're working on
Our latest research
The Christmas Device Study
New research on how Australian parents are weighing up devices this Christmas – what makes a device feel timely, how they judge readiness and what happens around the handover.
74% of parents are considering a device for their child this Christmas.
The Australian Digital Readiness Index
Australia's first national measure of children's Digital Readiness.
The Australian Digital Readiness Index is an annual study of children’s Digital Readiness. The 2026 Index surveyed 1,029 Australian parents and carers, each reporting on one child aged 9 to 14.
It looks at children’s digital lives, the three capabilities at the heart of readiness, and the support around them as they take on more of the digital world for themselves.
Explore The index →Digital readiness app for kids 9-14
A learner's permit for the internet
Coming January 2027
LiVELY turns Digital Readiness into something children can actually practise.
Our ambition is simple: no Australian family should have to pay to prepare their child for the digital world. That’s why LiVELY will be free for families.
Free for families. Funded by the ecosystem.
Meet LiVELY for kids →A new paradigm
Digital Readiness is bigger than one app, report or campaign. It’s a shared way to prepare children for digital life.
DRL Leadership
Meet the people behind The Lab
Founder, Digital Readiness Lab
Rinat Strahlhofer
Rinat Strahlhofer is the founder of the Digital Readiness Lab and LiVELY. She leads The Lab's strategy and partnerships, bringing together the researchers, organisations and media shaping childhood. Her job isn't to conduct the science, it's to make sure the science gets used.
Developmental Research Psychologist
Dr Sarah L. Howe
Dr Sarah L. Howe designed the Digital Readiness Index and leads its analysis. Her expertise is in how studies are built and what their data can support. She is engaged independently by the Digital Readiness Lab, with published work in children’s emotional development and parenting.
Product Experience, Digital Readiness Lab
Frida Quirk
Frida Quirk leads Product Experience, bridging the gap between research and what gets built from it. She turns evidence into products, programs and resources, shaping the moment a finding stops being a number and becomes something a child can practise or a parent can use.
Strategy & Impact, Digital Readiness Lab
Richard Johnston
Richard Johnston co-founded TripADeal in Byron Bay in 2011, building it into one of Australia's fastest-growing companies before selling to Qantas in 2024. He brings that founder's lens to The Lab, asking: what do we build, who do we build it with, and how do we make Digital Readiness matter at scale?