Meet Indian-American Gitanjali Rao, first-ever TIME 'Kid of the Year'

Indian-American teenager Gitanjali Rao has been chosen as TIME’s first-ever Kid of the Year for her work using ‘technology to tackle issues ranging from contaminated drinking water to opioid addiction and cyberbullying’.

Since a very young age, the aspiring scientist had begun thinking about how to use science and technology to bring about a social change in the global dynamics. Speaking to TIME, she said that at 10 years of age she had first mentioned to her parents about researching carbon nanotube sensor technology, which had left her mother pretty much in a state of confusion.
Rao’s latest discovery is an app called, Kindly, that detects cyberbullying at an early stage, based on artificial-­intelligence technology.

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Having an immense interest in genetics, Rao wants to further her higher education in genetics and epidemiology from MIT.

With the support of her parents, Bharathi and Ram Rao, local university experts, and the help of her teachers and mentors, Gitanjali invented a mastermind solution to the growing problem of drinking water contamination in Flint, United States.

Gitanjali is also a winner of the Top “Health” Pillar Prize for the TCS Ignite Innovation Student Challenge in May 2019 for developing a diagnostic tool based on advances in genetic engineering for early diagnosis of prescription opioid addiction.

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