In February 2024, 16-year-old Tejasvi Manoj from Frisco, Texas, confronted an enjoy that will encourage her to give protection to seniors from on-line scams. Whilst using house from Scouting The united states camp together with her father, she came upon that her 85-year-old grandfather had gained a apparently pressing e mail from a relative asking for $2,000 to hide an sudden debt. Able to conform, he used to be thankfully stopped through her father’s intervention. A handy guide a rough telephone name to the intended relative showed the request used to be fraudulent. Witnessing how simply older adults can fall sufferer to virtual scams, Tejasvi used to be motivated to analyze the rising danger of cybercrime focused on seniors and in the end increase Defend Seniors, a platform devoted to instructing and safeguarding older adults on-line.
Who’s tejasvi manoj: Time’s Child of the Yr and cybersecurity pioneer
Tejasvi Manoj is a highschool scholar, achieved coder, and founding father of Defend Seniors, a cybersecurity platform aimed toward instructing and protective older adults from on-line scams. Past her technological experience, she is deeply inquisitive about neighborhood carrier: incomes her Eagle Scout rank, volunteering with the North Texas Meals Financial institution Younger Advocates Council, tutoring Bhutanese refugees, and appearing in her college orchestra.Her oldsters, each IT execs, nurtured her early pastime in generation. Through 8th grade, Tejasvi used to be fluent in programming languages together with Java, Python, and HTML, and actively participated in cybersecurity projects like Ladies Who Code and Cyber-Patriot. Those reports supplied her to deal with a urgent social factor the usage of generation.
Rising danger of cybercrime towards seniors
Seniors constitute a in particular target-rich demographic for cybercriminals. In step with the FBI’s Web Crime Criticism Heart, just about 860,000 studies of on-line scams have been filed in 2024, leading to doable losses exceeding $16 billion. Fraud directed at people over 60 accounted for $5 billion, a 32% building up from the former yr.The Federal Business Fee studies that losses exceeding $10,000 amongst older adults quadrupled from 2020 to 2024, whilst losses over $100,000 greater sevenfold. This alarming pattern underscores the urgency for efficient answers to safeguard retirees, pensioners, and seniors from monetary exploitation on-line.
Cybersecurity gear designed for seniors to keep away from on-line fraud
Motivated through her grandfather’s enjoy, Tejasvi evolved Defend Seniors, a website online designed to empower seniors with wisdom and gear to navigate the virtual panorama safely. The platform provides 4 core sections:
- Be told – Educates customers about web protection, together with sturdy password introduction, privateness settings, and figuring out scams. Steering is simplified for accessibility, emphasizing not unusual ways like faux charities and pressing cost requests.
- Ask – Includes a user-friendly chatbot that gives concise, two-sentence explanations to reply to cybersecurity questions, making sure readability for older adults unfamiliar with technical jargon.
- Analyse – Lets in customers to add suspicious messages or emails. An AI machine evaluates those with 95% accuracy, no longer simplest figuring out scams however explaining why a message is probably bad.
- Record – Connects customers to suitable businesses, together with the FBI, AARP, SEC, and Shopper Monetary Coverage Bureau, to put up lawsuits and take motion towards fraudsters.
The platform prioritises independence and self belief, empowering seniors to navigate the web safely whilst lowering reliance on members of the family for technical improve.
Tejasvi earns nationwide popularity whilst construction a cybersecurity platform
Developing Defend Seniors required balancing a couple of duties. Tejasvi remained lively in Scouting The united states, earned her Eagle Scout rank, performed violin in her college orchestra, tutored refugees on-line, and volunteered in meals safety projects—all whilst designing and coding the platform.Her paintings has earned nationwide popularity. She gained an honorable point out within the 2024 Congressional App Problem, delivered a 2025 TEDx communicate on bridging virtual divides, and changed into TIME Mag’s Child of the Yr 2025, additionally incomes the consideration of TIME for Youngsters Provider Megastar.
Tejasvi’s imaginative and prescient: Serving to seniors navigate the web safely and optimistically
Tejasvi credit her good fortune to sturdy mentorship. Her oldsters equipped hands-on improve in coding and cybersecurity, whilst Aarathi Rajamanickam, a device engineering supervisor, served as a mentor, providing steering in AI, cybersecurity, and device construction. Techniques corresponding to Ladies Who Code and Cyber-Patriot additional honed her technical talents, making ready her to deal with real-world cybersecurity threats successfully.These days in non-public preview mode, Defend Seniors depends upon a unfastened AI engine that limits target market capability. Tejasvi is fundraising to transition to a industrial AI platform to extend get entry to and achieve extra seniors national. She additionally plans to habits in-person workshops at assisted-living amenities, serving to older adults acquire hands-on enjoy in cybersecurity.Her imaginative and prescient is apparent: to empower seniors to navigate the web global independently, optimistically, and safely whilst instructing households on supporting older kin in protective themselves from fraud.Additionally Learn | Elon Musk not global’s richest user! Oracle’s Larry Ellison overtakes him after $101 billion acquire