Gitanjali Rao is an Indian-American child prodigy, inventor, author, scientist, and STEM promoter. She won the Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge in 2017, and was recognized on Forbes 30 Under 30 for her innovations. Rao was named TIME Top young innovator in 2020 for her innovations and "innovation workshops" she conducts across the globe and, on December 4, 2020 was featured on the cover of TIME magazine and named "Kid of the Year".
Gitanjali’s parents are of Indian origin and come from an academic background, and have always supported their daughter’s quest to learn new things. She currently lives in Lone Tree, Colorado where she attends STEM School Highlands Ranch. Rao has expressed interest in studying genetics and epidemiology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has spoken up about the gender pay gap.
Career
When she was 10, Rao heard about the Flint water crisis while watching the news and became interested in ways to measure the lead content in water. This led to her developing a device called Tethys based on carbon nanotubes that could send water quality information via Bluetooth. Rao collaborated with a research scientist at 3M.
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Take the IQ test →In 2017, Rao won the Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge and was awarded $25,000 for her invention, Tethys. Tethys contains a 9-volt battery, a lead sensing unit, a bluetooth extension and a processor. It uses carbon nanotubes, whose resistance changes in the presence of lead. She learned about the carbon nanotubes while reading the Massachusetts Institute of Technology website. She plans to work with scientists and medical professionals to investigate the potential of Tethys as a viable method. She presented her idea at the 2018 MAKERS conference and raised a further $25,000. As of January 2019, she was working with the Denver water facility and hopes to have a prototype in the next two years.
She is a 3-time TEDx Speaker. In September 2018 Rao was awarded the United States Environmental Protection Agency President’s Environmental Youth Award.
Rao was also awarded the Top “Health” Pillar Prize for the TCS Ignite Innovation Student Challenge in May 2019 for developing a diagnostic tool called Epione based on advances in genetic engineering for early diagnosis of prescription opioid addiction.
Rao developed an app that uses artificial intelligence that can detect cyberbullying at an early stage.
She is also an accomplished pianist. According to her mother, when Rao was three years old, she asked what she could do to help someone who was sick; playing music was suggested.
She is currently a member of Scouts and has enrolled in the Scouting STEM program in the United States, and is working on getting her pilot's license.
Rao is the first person to receive TIME magazine's Kid of the Year designation.
Top questions
Who is Gitanjali Rao?
Gitanjali Rao is an American inventor, author, social activist and STEM advocate. She won the Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge in 2017 for a lead-detection device called Tethys, was recognized on Forbes 30 Under 30, and in 2020 became Time magazine's first Kid of the Year.
What did Gitanjali Rao invent?
Rao developed Tethys, a device that detects lead in drinking water, and Epione, a diagnostic tool for early detection of prescription opioid addiction. She also created Kindly, an app that uses artificial intelligence to detect cyberbullying at an early stage and has been rolled out in partnership with UNICEF.
Why was Gitanjali Rao named Time's Kid of the Year?
Time named Rao its top young innovator of 2020 for her inventions and for the innovation workshops she runs around the world. On 4 December 2020 she appeared on the cover of Time and became the magazine's first Kid of the Year. She has given over 200 talks and workshops in more than 40 countries.
How does Gitanjali Rao's Tethys device detect lead in water?
Tethys uses carbon nanotubes, whose electrical resistance changes in the presence of lead, along with a lead sensing unit, a processor and a Bluetooth extension that sends water quality information. Rao began the project at age 10 after hearing about the Flint water crisis. She holds a patent for the invention.
What books has Gitanjali Rao written?
Rao became a self-published author at age ten with Baby Brother Wonders, which she wrote and illustrated. In 2021 she published Young Inventor's Guide to STEM, which sets out her five steps to problem-solving, and sections of it have been adapted for school use in Kenya and Uganda.
What is Gitanjali Rao doing now?
As of 2025, Gitanjali Rao is studying biological engineering at MIT, where she enrolled in 2023. In 2025 she received the first Starmus Stephen Hawking Junior Medal for Science Communications. She also planned to publish a second book, A Young Innovators Guide to Planning For Success.
