As years float on by with no substantial solution to Flint, Michigan's water crisis, one girl decided to take matters into her own hands.
This time we're not talking about Little Miss Flint, but Gitanjali Rao, a 12-year-old Denver, Colorado resident who has invented a lead detector that could change the game, according to CBS News.
Right now, if you want to test your water for lead, you have to send a sample to a lab and wait at least a few days for the result. Rao's invented a device that detects lead in seconds by using carbon molecules; users are told whether their water is clean or not via an app.
"If my mom asked me what do you want for Christmas, I'd be like, lead," said Rao, who was inspired to begin working on her detector after reading about Flint.
"I've been following the Flint water crisis for about two years," Rao said. She was especially concerned about lead's effects on children.
"Lead is mostly harmful to younger children, about my age — giving them growth defects and potentially damaging their brain," she said.
Rao presented her invention at the Young Scientist Challenge. During her presentation, she told the judges, "Imaging living day in and day out drinking contaminated water with dangerous substances like lead. Introducing tethys, the easy to use, fast, accurate, portable and inexpensive device to detect lead in water."
She won the competition, and its $25,000 prize.
In Flint, over 100,000 residents were affected by the contaminated water they drank, and Rao doesn't want any other community to have to suffer the same fate.
The young inventor hopes her device can make testing water cheap and easy, noting that "our water quality's just as important as doctor's appointments or dentist's appointments."
In addition to the support of the Young Scientist Challenge's judges, Rao has support closer to home. Her teacher, Simi Basu, has high hopes for Rao's device, and said, "I am so confident that she will be able to take it to the market if we keep providing her help."
Hopefully Rao's invention will be able to help ensure that people all over the world have clean, safe drinking water. Shout out to you, Gitanjali!
