GITANJALI RAO

A SUSTAINABLE TOMORROW

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GITANJALI RAO TIME´S KID OF THE YEAR

Gitanjali Rao was recognized as America's Top Young Scientist and received an EPA Presidential award for inventing her device "Tethys" — an early lead detection tool. Gitanjali is also the inventor of “Epione” — a device for early diagnosis of prescription opioid addiction using genetic engineering, and "Kindly" — an anti-cyberbullying service using AI and Natural Language processing.

She was honored as Forbes “30 Under 30 in Science” in 2019 and TIME’s “Top Young Innovator” and "TIME Kid of the Year" for her innovations and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) workshops she conducts globally, which has inspired over 50,000 students in the last two years across five continents and 26 countries. In her sessions, she shares her own process of innovation that can be used by students all over the world. She often presents in global and corporate forums on innovation and the importance of STEM. Gitanjali is the author of the book "Young Innovator's Guide to STEM", which guides students, educators, or teachers with a prescribed 5 step innovation process. She was honored as one of America's Top Youth Volunteers by Prudential in 2021 for her workshops.

What are your driving forces and what is your "superpower"?

– My driving force is the fact that we are all growing with several problems that never existed before with climate change, contamination of natural resources, etc. So no matter what, we youth need to be equipped with skills for the unknown jobs of tomorrow that will sustain our infrastructure and resources. My superpower is the fact that I am curious and ready to try different solutions with the hope that I bring awareness to people and organizations on the problems we face.

Tell us about how you work with research and innovations to contribute to a sustainable tomorrow?

– My work on Tethys, an early lead detection tool and Epione, a directional diagnosis on prescription opioid addiction has the fundamental concept of giving end-users the ability to test themselves and take action. The lack of knowledge of contamination and extent of contamination in our water is a much bigger problem. This adds to the fact that there are no specific regulations to test drinking water in all sources in many countries. Hence providing an inexpensive tool in every-

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A SUSTAINABLE TOMORROW

Believe in empathy and kindness based solutions.

body’s hand is the best way since people can take actions. They can reach out to authorities or migrate/find other sources thus preventing and saving their lives. – The focus should be on detection of contaminants, since we have crossed the point to prevent contamination and need to determine where to invest in mass purification/filtration techniques in huge water sources. The next decade should focus on technologies that can detect and test contaminants accurately and quickly, whether it is in water or the environment. I believe that will help us sustain the future without depleting our natural resources.

You've already created Tethys, Epione and Kindly, tell us more about this?

– Kindly is an Artificial-Intelligence based service to detect and prevent cyberbullying at an early stage. It uses the latest developments in Machine Learning and NLU/ NLP in order to identify words and phrases that could be considered bullying. The service can be seamlessly invoked to a variety of different front ends. For example, I have created a Beta standalone app and browser extension as an example. The current solutions in the market, while effective, are limited in their capabilities since many are based on a fixed bank of words when in reality, the vocabulary and terminology used are constantly evolving. Kindly’s self-learning service adapts to this by learning about the latest emojis, memes, and slang used. Along with this, Kindly attempts to be non-punitive by allowing users the option to rephrase or edit their message. I recently partnered with UNICEF and we are in the process to roll this out world-wide.

– Epione diagnoses prescription opioid addiction before it’s too late using the ELISA based protein detection method. After a user inserts a bodily fluid sample, Epione uses the protein expression from the mu opioid receptor gene to find out if a patient is at the onset of addiction. The device itself uses the standard colorimetry process in order to identify the addiction status of a patient. All the results are displayed on a custom-built mobile phone app which shows you the status of addiction in a user-friendly scale and includes action items including a map of the nearest addiction center. This is still in the research phase, but several Universities are following a similar approach to continue research.

– Tethys is a device that detects lead in drinking water faster and more inexpensively than the current tools out there today. It uses carbon nanotube sensor technology and sends all the data to your mobile phone on the custom built Tethys app. When the Tethys cartridge is dipped into lead contaminated water, the lead in water binds to the chloride ions forming lead chloride molecules which increases the amount of resistance to the flow of current and decreases the conductivity. The conductivity drop is correlated to the severity of the lead compounds in water. The app then reads the results as safe, slightly contaminated, or critical giving

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users the option to upload their test results, location, and time of test so that a heat map can be formed to show locations with more lead levels and less lead levels accordingly. – I recently received a patent and I personally know of several Universities in India, Brazil and other countries, who are researching and enhancing nanotechnology as a norm for detecting contaminants.

How can we collaborate more across generations to create new solutions to old challenges?

– Believe in empathy and kindness based solutions. We were forced to innovate during the pandemic and we learned from each other across the world which brought us together. Vaccinations were ready within a matter of 9 months and research organizations collaborated on AI or predictive models on the spread of the disease or vaccine distribution. If we learn from 2020 and maintain the same pace of collaboration, imagine what we could achieve within years together.

What does it mean to be named Kid of the Year by TIME?

– I am honored and humbled to have got the recognition as the “TIME Kid of the Year”. The accolade has helped me amplify my voice and given me a platform to influence and introduce innovation in the early education curriculum. The problem solving mindset is not a luxury any more, it is a necessity. I believe by seeing a young person in the cover of TIME, many young students like me will aspire to start their innovation journey. TIME’s decision to include the youth and work of our generation in the cover highlighted optimism, kindness, positivity and hope especially in these tough times. Each of us have different talents and we try to light up the community with whatever we can and I hope I am representing youth from all walks of life, no matter their gender, their age, or where they come from. – Recognition always comes with responsibility. It comes with the responsibility of sharing what I have learned with others. It comes with the responsibility of inspiring more innovators. One region at a time and one step at a time, I believe I am requesting educators and schools to make a change and introduce innovation to students earlier. I hope research labs, organizations and universities open up their doors to young students because we are the future workforce.

What is your dream to be involved in creating for your and young people's future?

– My dream is to provide and maintain education equity. As a first step, we can do that with the support of Universities, Organizations and Government investing in infrastructure and making Internet access as the basic right for every individual. Many of the common problems in mass education today—such as lack of infrastructure or shortage of teachers—can all be eliminated through remote teaching with the option to learn anytime.