Girls & Science Has A Special Guest Speaker This Year: Gitanjali Rao

By Kelly Brown

DENVER (CBS4) – Girls & Science has a very special guest speaker this year.  She is an inventor, author, scientist, engineer, and Time's 2020 Kid of the Year, Colorado's very own Gitanjali Rao!

Gitanjali says she is super excited that her work is inspiring others and she hopes to continue that with Girls & Science.  Gitanjali says "I think it's just really opened up this opportunity for me to, I guess really show that there's one Gitanjali actually and she's already making a difference but imagine if we had, you know, thousands more of me across the world, imagine the difference we can make. And right now more than ever we need to maximize innovation and creativity and in order to do that we need everyone. We need kids, we need girls, we need everyone from every single corner of life and that's exactly what I'm hoping to do with this event."

SECTION: Girls & Science

Gitanjali hopes to be a role model for other girls. She got involved in science and technology after hearing about the work of Marie Curie and other fantastic women scientists in the field.

"I think that to get girls in STEM, we really need to show them other role models and that this platform has allowed me to really be the role model that I wish that I did have growing up."

There are so many things Gitanjali hopes kids get out of her presentation.

"The biggest thing is that it is okay to dream big, and ... nobody defines your passion but yourself. And I guess that's really what I needed to hear and what I'm so happy to really be putting that message out there is, you can create your own future and you can build it no matter what anyone tells you."

Gitanjali has used technology to tackle issues ranging from contaminated drinking water to opioid addiction and cyberbullying. When asked what is next for her, she says, "Oh, there's so much that I do want to do, and makes it so much more difficult to really choose what the next thing is, but I'm definitely looking at parasitic contaminants in water I'm also looking at ways to prevent future pandemics and also making these innovation workshops that I run self-sustaining beyond me, but I don't know, let's see what the future holds, I guess."

In her spare time, Gitanjali plays the piano, bakes a lot and she is working on getting her pilot's license.

Learn more at www.dmns.org/girls-science/.