Trisha Prabhu: ReThink
ReThink — software that asks you to pause before posting a hurtful message.
After reading about a girl who died by suicide following online bullying, Prabhu, then 13 and from an Indian-American family in Illinois, tested a simple hypothesis: adolescents post hurtful things impulsively, so a pause might change the outcome. ReThink scans a message before it is sent and asks the author to reconsider. In her trial, most users chose not to post once nudged. She was a Google Science Fair global finalist in 2014 and presented at the White House Science Fair in 2015.
IP note
US 9,686,217 B2 (priority 2014, granted 2017) plus a family incl. US 11,706,176, 2025 grants and design patent D797,142.
Recognition
Google Science Fair 2014 global finalist; Rhodes and Knight-Hennessy Scholar.
What this means for a student inventor in India
[Editor: 120–200 words connecting this story to the Indian route — Section 6 (any true inventor may apply), provisional vs complete specification, disclosure at fairs (Section 31), renewals, and who owns what when a school is involved. Link to the relevant MYCrave guide.]
Related young innovators
- Nick D'Aloisio — Summly
- Nilay Kulkarni — Ashioto
- Kavya Kopparapu — Eyeagnosis and GlioVision
Sources
[Editor: list the 2–4 primary sources from the research notes for this entry, with the date checked.]
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