The average 11-year-old probably doesn’t spend an exorbitant amount of time worrying about the world outside of their neighborhood. In fact, it’s probably easy to think that most 21 and 31 year-olds aren’t spending a lot of time worrying either, but Gitanjali Rao is not most people.
Rao, who was recently named “America’s Top Young Scientist” at the recent 3M Innovation Center in St. Paul, Minnesota, had been paying attention to everything that had been happening in the Flint, Michigan’s water crisis, and decided she needed to help bring changes to the community.
“I had been following the Flint, Michigan, issue for about two years,” she explained to ABC News. “I was appalled by the number of people affected by lead contamination in water.” When she researched into how to test water for contamination, she found that many of the options were a combination of slow and undependable.
After convincing the local high school to give her time to use the school labs, she decided to get to work.
The finished product she presented at 3M’s show was Tethys, named after the Greek goddess of fresh water. As she explains in her video, the product works by utilizing a disposable cartridge and processor that links to a smartphone app via Bluetooth. Measuring electron flow, the cartridge will instantly tell the user whether or not the water is safe to drink.
Rao explained in her video- “The tool allows easy testing at home or by agencies for quick detection and remedial actions. It can be expanded in the future to test for other chemical contaminants in potable water. I hope this helps in a small way to detect and prevent long-term health effects of lead contamination for many of us.”
Because of how amazing her product was to the team at 3M, she was awarded the”America’s Top Young Scientist” award in and given a check for $25,000. While she plans to save some of that for her future college fund, the rest is slated to go into making her product commercially viable.
Rao proves that hard work, determination, and passion, are the real keys to success, and we’re sure that we’ll be hearing about the incredible girl as the years go on!
Please SHARE this with your friends and family.
