Gitanjali Rao

Early Curiosity and Family Support

Gitanjali Rao’s age and early interests

A Curious Mind From The Beginning: Born on November 19, 2005, in Ohio, Gitanjali Rao moved with her family to Lone Tree, Colorado. Now in her late teens, she has achieved more than most people do in their entire lives. Her path to science wasn’t planned—it grew from a rich mix of interests. “I don’t think I started with science as a path I wanted to take. I was introduced to the arts, reading, science, culture, and history,” explains Rao.

Beyond Science: Rao’s childhood interests stretched far beyond labs and experiments. She loves Indian classical dancing and classical music, showing her deep connection to cultural arts. She visited a nursing home with her mother at age three and saw how sad the patients were. This inspired her to learn piano to brighten their days. By five, robots and drones fascinated her, and she included them in every creative idea she pitched. She became a Davidson Young Scholar in 2012 at just seven years old, showing her remarkable intellectual gifts early.

Early Signs of State-of-the-art: America’s Top Young Scientist title belongs to Rao now, but she hasn’t always seen herself as the “science type”. She started thinking about how science and technology could create social change during second grade. At 10, she told her parents she wanted to study carbon nanotube sensor technology at the Denver Water Quality Research Lab—a request that left them puzzled at first.

Support from Gitanjali Rao’s parents

Academic Foundation: Ram and Bharathi Rao created the ideal environment to nurture a young innovator. Their impressive backgrounds in IT and strategic project management helped create a home where curiosity and problem-solving became daily habits. “Having a background in academics, her parents supported her quest for science and technology from her early years,” notes one source.

Unconventional Parenting Approach: “We are a weird family,” Rao says with a laugh. Her parents created unique challenges to encourage creativity and critical thinking. They held pitch competitions where Gitanjali and her brother Anirudh (“Anu”) developed ideas for businesses or inventions based on familiar concepts like zoos, hotels, or restaurants. They used strict evaluation criteria:

• Creativity
• Communication
• Technology
• User experience

Core Values and Resources: Rao’s parents asked their children to pick one principle to guide their lives—Gitanjali chose “commitment.” She explains, “Sometimes I commit without knowing how I will do it and, magically, just the principle helps me reach the end”. This steadfast dedication became her driving force. Rao appreciates her incredible support system: “If I wanted to play a certain sport, learn something new, I had all the resources in front of me”. Her mother once brought nearly a dozen books about clouds simply because Gitanjali showed interest in the subject during third grade.

First science kit and its effect

The Gift That Changed Everything: Gitanjali’s uncle gave her a chemistry kit when she was just four—a present that would shape her future dramatically. “I think it changed my life forever,” she told TOI from Denver, Colorado. The kit came with beakers, test tubes, and colorful liquids, opening a new world of scientific exploration.

Start of a Lifelong Passion: “Gitanjali’s interest in science was sparked when she was just 4 years old after her uncle gifted her a science kit,” multiple sources confirm. This early introduction to scientific tools laid groundwork for her future innovations. She remembered, “It was a combination of going to the science museum, constantly learning new things…And that chemistry kit”.

From Curiosity to Dedication: The effect of this early exposure showed as Rao developed her approach to problem-solving. Six years after getting the science kit, a news story about the Flint water crisis rekindled her passion for science. She told her parents she wanted to find a solution. This path from childhood curiosity to dedicated innovation shows how early science exposure can shape a young mind.

The Path Forward: Mentor Shari Stockdale saw Rao’s growing interest in science and invited her to join her 4-H STEM Fun class. Rao served as both student and assistant. Stockdale noted, “She was the only student who showed up with a lab coat—the girl meant business!”. This dedication led her to develop Tethys, her groundbreaking lead detection device, at age 11.

The Spark: From Flint Crisis to Tethys

What did Gitanjali Rao invent first?

The Flint Inspiration: A critical environmental crisis caught Gitanjali Rao’s attention when she was 10 years old. News coverage about the Flint, Michigan water crisis showed lead contamination affecting nearly 100,000 residents who had taken tainted water for over a year. “I had been following the Flint, Michigan, issue for about two years,” she told ABC News. “I was appalled by the number of people affected by lead contamination in water”.

Witnessing The Problem: Gitanjali saw her parents struggle with unreliable home water testing methods. They either used questionable test strips or sent samples to laboratories. Both options took too much time. “I went, ‘Well, this is not a reliable process and I’ve got to do something to change this,'” she explained to Business Insider. She felt compelled to help despite living thousands of miles away in Colorado: “That’s not something I want to go through, what the Flint residents went through… our water quality’s just as important as doctor’s appointments or dentist’s appointments”.

The Birth Of Tethys: Gitanjali’s determination and scientific curiosity led to her first invention—a device called Tethys, named after the Greek goddess of fresh water. She created a working prototype by seventh grade through collaboration with a 3M research scientist. She found the technology while reading the Massachusetts Institute of Technology website during her “weekly perusal of MIT’s Materials Science and Engineering website to see if there’s anything new”. Her solution proved so groundbreaking that she earned the title “America’s Top Young Scientist”.
How Tethys works and its components

The Scientific Principle: Tethys employs carbon nanotube sensor technology to detect lead contamination in water. Carbon atoms connect in a beehive shape to create nanotubes that respond to changes in electron flow. “If there is lead in the water, the lead sticks to the carbon ions, creating resistance. Tethys measures that resistance, and sends the data to a smartphone app to give the status of lead in water”.

Device Components: This portable invention has three main parts:

• A disposable cartridge containing chemically treated carbon nanotube arrays
• An Arduino-based signal processor with Bluetooth attachment
• A smartphone app that displays water quality results

Technical Innovation: The 3D-printed device matches the size of a deck of cards and contains a 9-volt battery, a lead sensing unit, a Bluetooth extension, and a processor. “While Tethys focuses on lead in drinking water, the technology could easily be adapted to detect other contaminants. Tethys uses carbon nanotubes with chloride dopants to detect lead; the combination of nanotube and other dopants with the right resistance signatures can be used to detect other contaminants”.

Ground Application: Tethys can detect lead in seconds instead of waiting days for lab results. “My target market right now is people in their homes as well as schools,” Gitanjali explained. She has continued improving Tethys with professional help since creating the original prototype. “I am currently working with the Denver water facility and plan to have a prototype within two years,” she stated in 2019.

Tethys Gitanjali Rao: Awards and recognition

Young Scientist Challenge: Gitanjali’s ingenuity won her first major recognition in the 2017 Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge. The competition connected her with Kathleen Shafer, a research specialist in new plastics technologies, who helped turn her theoretical concept into a physical prototype. She received $25,000 (approximately INR 2,109,511.27) for this achievement.

Environmental Leadership: Gitanjali’s steadfast dedication to solving environmental issues through science earned her the United States Environmental Protection Agency Presidential Award in 2018. “It’s not hyperbole to say she really blew us out of the water,” said Brian Barnhart, a school superintendent in Illinois and one of the judges.

Future Vision: Gitanjali stays focused on improving her invention despite these accolades. “I plan to continue evolving my device. Mainly I would like to test for accuracy such as doing false-positive testing and manufacturing chemically doped carbon nanocubes as my main sensor material. I also plan to make it a more compact design and possibly even add the option to crowdsource device data”. She wants to expand Tethys beyond lead detection: “I plan to expand it to other contaminations such as Arsenic, Cadmium etc. which are major contaminations of water in India”.

Expanding Impact Through Innovation

Kindly: Tackling cyberbullying with AI

Beyond Water Testing: The success of Tethys led Gitanjali Rao to tackle a bigger problem—cyberbullying. She lived in Denver, Colorado and saw the devastating effects of online harassment firsthand. Her area had “the highest rate of teen suicides and most of them are actually dying due to cyberbullying”. This reality pushed her to create Kindly, an artificial intelligence service that spots cyberbullying early.

Innovative Technology: Kindly combines natural language processing and machine learning to spot harmful language in online messages. The system goes beyond existing tools with fixed vocabularies. Its self-learning algorithm adapts to new informal language, including latest emojis, memes, and slang. “I started to hard-code in some words that could be considered bullying, and then my engine took those words and identified words that are similar,” Rao explained.

Global Impact: The service takes a gentler approach by letting users rephrase messages before sending them. “The goal is not to punish. As a teenager, I know teenagers tend to lash out sometimes. Instead, it gives you the chance to rethink what you’re saying,” Rao shared. UNICEF noticed her breakthrough and now powers the service worldwide. People across the globe can add to its self-learning algorithm through UNICEF’s website.

Epione: Addressing opioid addiction

Medical Innovation: Rao also developed Epione, named after the Greek goddess of soothing and recovery. This diagnostic tool helps detect prescription opioid addiction early. “There were so many teens getting into prescription opioids, and before anybody knew about it, it was too late to do anything,” she observed.

Scientific Approach: Epione works as a portable device that tests biological samples for protein levels that show high amounts of opioids in the body. The technology uses genetic engineering to find these elevated protein levels. “It creates almost a spectrum of what a sample would look like without addiction and what a sample would like with addiction,” Rao explained.

Addressing A Crisis: The tool tackles a major health challenge. Opioid-related overdoses killed more than 47,000 people in the US during 2017 alone and caused about two-thirds of all drug-related deaths globally.

COVID-19 and bio-contaminant detection

Pandemic Response: The COVID-19 pandemic made Rao look at vaccine distribution challenges. “I’m looking at how we can use predictive analytics and data models in order to create a plan of how vaccine distribution will roll out,” she stated.

Future Prevention: She broadened her focus beyond quick fixes: “The next biggest problem that I’ll probably look towards solving is preventing future pandemics from happening because I think it’s safe to assume that this isn’t the last one”.

Ongoing Research: Rao now works on “an easy way to help detect bio-contaminants in water—things like parasites”. She uses genetically engineered microbes to find parasites: “I’m using living things to find living things which I think is a very interesting concept”.

Building a Global Movement

Gitanjali Rao’s innovation workshops

Structured Approach: Gitanjali Rao has turned her experience into a five-step innovation process—observe, brainstorm, research, build, and communicate—that serves as the foundation of her workshops. She takes a closer look at each step through ground applications during these interactive sessions. Students get hands-on experience with breakthrough concepts and emerging technologies.

Remarkable Outcomes: The ideas coming from these workshops range from portable spacesuits to robotic companion dogs and shoes that can call 911. They showcase Rao’s core belief: “innovation has no minimum age and important ideas can be developed without a huge R&D budget”. Her workshops start by discovering what girls enjoy, then showing them how STEM connects to their interests.

Pandemic Adaptation: The COVID-19 pandemic turned into an opportunity to expand her workshop’s reach. “It honestly blew up my ideas and made everything so much more exciting for me… I was able to triple my numbers of students that are affected because I had never really thought of using a virtual platform like Zoom for a workshop”.
Mentoring over 30,000 students

Milestone Achievements: Rao reached her original goal of mentoring 30,000 students through her innovation workshops in December 2020. Her influence has grown rapidly—by 2021, she had reached over 57,000 students, and that number quickly grew to more than 68,000 students in about 40 countries.

Educational Equality: “I believe that innovation should have an equal playing field. We shouldn’t put a price on coming up with ideas,” Rao explains. She has raised more than INR 5,906,631.56 to help refugee camps and Title I schools buy books and educational resources.

Global Reach: Rao’s workshops extend way beyond the reach and influence of American borders. She works with students in sub-Saharan African countries, India, Afghanistan, Nepal, and many others. As a National Geographic Young Explorer and laureate for the Young Activists Summit in Geneva, she enhanced the Makerspace in the Kakuma refugee camp by providing laptops, printers, and iPads.

Partnerships with global organizations

High-Profile Collaborations: Beyond her independent workshops, Rao has built strategic collaborations with renowned organizations worldwide. “I work very closely with the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation and Angelina Jolie, and I worked with students in Cambodia for their workshop,” she reveals.

Diverse Alliance Network: Her collaborative network spans multiple sectors. She pilots the “Empathy Sharktank” employee empowerment activity for startups and schools through the Forbes Ignite Knowledge Network. She also serves as an Executive Intern with Lockheed Martin, where she works on creating “an unmanned greenhouse in a microgravity environment for real-world application and practice”.

Sustained Impact: Rao published “A Young Innovator’s Guide to STEM” in 2021 to share her knowledge beyond direct workshops. The book has been translated into five languages and distributed globally. Her message to organizations remains clear: “invest in students: open your labs/maker spaces/R&D departments to elementary- and middle-school students; allow them to shadow you and, if you can, offer them mentoring”.

Recognition and Future Vision

Extraordinary Experience of a Young Visionary

Without doubt, Gitanjali Rao’s story goes way beyond her scientific achievements. She received her first chemistry kit at age four and went on to develop state-of-the-art technologies like Tethys, Kindly, and Epione. Rao showed that groundbreaking ideas can come from anyone, at any age. Her path from a curious child in Ohio to a globally recognized scientist at MIT shows what happens when young minds get the right support to grow.

Global Effect Through State-of-the-Art Solutions

Rao’s most important gift to the world might be how she enables the next generation of innovators. She has taught her five-step innovation process to more than 68,000 students in over 40 countries. Her method is simple: observe, brainstorm, research, build, and communicate. Her mutually beneficial alliances with UNICEF and the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation have helped spread her message. Her book “A Young Innovator’s Guide to STEM” continues to inspire young people who can’t attend her workshops.

Legacy of Problem-Solving

Rao’s approach to innovation teaches us something powerful: good problem-solving starts with empathy and observation. She spots real-life problems first, then creates tech solutions. From water contamination in Flint to cyberbullying among teenagers and the opioid crisis in communities nationwide, this method works. She makes innovation available to everyone, whatever their background. This creates a roadmap for young people to become positive change makers.

Future Possibilities

Gitanjali Rao’s work on bio-contaminant detection and pandemic prevention hints at even bigger things to come. She’s still in her teens but has achieved what many scientists dream of in their entire careers. All the same, her biggest contribution might be the thousands of young innovators she has inspired. These future scientists will tackle tomorrow’s challenges using her principles and methods. As Rao has shown time and again, world-changing ideas can come from anywhere—even from an 11-year-old with a chemistry kit who wants to make the world better.

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