STEM Scout Named TIME’s First-Ever Kid of the Year
When the TIME article came out naming 15-year-old Gitanjali Rao their first-ever Kid of the Year, we were excited to read her story. Then, we saw her pictures and got even more excited – she is representing STEM Scouts and makes her STEM lab coat look even more sharp with all her generosity, passion, and super bright brain.
The STEM Scouts program is designed to give boys and girls the opportunity to work hands-on and explore the worlds of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. Each unit can consist of 10 to 20 boys and girls with three or more leaders per unit. They have weekly meetings with monthly field trips, and there are plenty of opportunities for the Scouts to be inspired, as units get to meet and interact with STEM professionals throughout their field trips! The lessons for STEM were created and vetted by STEM educators, so they are engaging, age-appropriate and designed to draw kids into what it means to explore and experiment.
Gitanjali said it best when she said, “Don’t try to fix every problem, just focus on one that excites you. If I can do it, anybody can do it.” This feeds right into what we see from so many young people in Scouting. She decided from an early age to home in and focus on small ways to help her community, starting with simply wanting to make everyone around her smile. In her interview with Angelina Jolie for Time Magazine (yes, that Angelina Jolie), she stated that her everyday goal was “just to make someone happy. And it soon turned into, ‘How can we bring positivity and community to the place we live?’”
Even though she is astonishingly young, Rao has developed a service to help prevent cyberbullying, started developing a device that tests protein in body fluid samples to detect opioid use disorder, along with creating a device made to help people test lead levels in their tap water at home. Despite all of her time spent in the lab, she still manages to as a mentor to 30,000 students and loves inspiring others to chase and create based on their own unique experiences and passions.
Where she serves as a STEM icon and inspiration to so many (did you know she was also a delegate for the 2018 Report to the Nation, as well? You can check her out her interview with Bryan on Scouting from 2018 – she was only 12 and already knew that she wanted to attend MIT), she gets lit up by reading the MIT Tech Review.
“My pop-culture news is actually MIT Tech Review. I read it constantly. I think that’s really where inspiration strikes: hearing about all these amazing people at schools like MIT and Harvard who are doing such amazing work with technology. And I try to connect it back to what I see out there and put it together in a way that no one’s seen before.”
From all of this, it all comes back to Gitanjali’s process of “Observe, brainstorm, research, build and communicate.” Whether you are just dipping your toes into the water with STEM or you’ve been conducting research and experiments for years, there is always room for more inspiration and to connect with the people in your community.
Do you have your own STEM story to share with fellow Scouts? Drop us a comment below and be sure to tag us in your own STEM pictures on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter!
