Country of Residence
United States
Age
17
Project title
TruthSpot.ai
Project Summary: Describe your project in one sentence
TruthSpot.ai trains teenagers to spot AI-generated deepfakes, voice clones, and fake images, helping them stay curious, critical, and kind online.
Website URL(s) or social media handles.
https://www.truthspot.ai, https://www.instagram.com/truthspot_ai/
Project Category
My project is an existing project that I started
Project Stage
Scaling (We’re expanding impact to new locations or in new and innovative ways)
Founding Story: What was the spark that led you to start your project? What was the "Aha!" moment that led you to get started and see the potential for this to succeed?
In 2024, an AI voice clone shattered my grandfather Ajju’s trust in people. A caller who knew Ajju’s account number and sounded like a legitimate Verizon rep said he’d mistakenly credited Ajju $19,000 and would lose his job unless Ajju wired it back. Ajju approved the transaction until he became skeptical, called Verizon, and discovered it was an audio deepfake impersonating a Verizon customer service representative. Ajju felt embarrassed and pulled back from our family. If an AI-generated voice fooled someone as cautious as Ajju, deepfakes aren’t just a cyber problem but also a major trust issue. Our democracy depends on the trust people place in the information they consume and their ability to make reasonable decisions based on it. This prompted me to research what tools exist to help young people learn to navigate a world with deepfakes, and I was surprised to find almost nothing available. While written scam-awareness guides exist, nothing similar exists for deepfake detection. The number of financial deepfake scams against children and teenagers under 20 grew by nearly 2,500 percent between 2017 and 2022 – AI-generated deepfakes are more advanced than ever. I felt I had no choice but to address the gap in digital media literacy. This is why I created TruthSpot.ai.
The Problem: What problem are you helping to solve? Why does it matter to you and your community?
Today, anyone can create a voice or an image and deliver it directly to your cell phone. Teens already engage with AI personas online, yet no one teaches them to distinguish a real person from a fake. This problem isn’t limited to youth—everyone can fall for a scam. The consequences are devastating, including financial loss, identity theft, damaged reputations, and eroded trust in digital platforms. While we know how to check whether a written source or article is reliable, we lack the same skills for AI-generated videos or audio. Current media literacy programs focus on evaluating news articles and traditional misinformation, not on whether a person, voice, or video is real. These programs are expensive or not included in public school curricula, so low-income communities are hit the hardest. Scams reportedly cost Americans more than $10 billion in 2023, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Scamming is becoming more common with the rise of deepfakes and AI, yet fewer than 15% of K-12 digital literacy courses teach students to spot synthetic media. I feel a responsibility to act before deepfakes become a permanent threat to my generation’s security.
Your Solution: How are you solving this problem? Share your specific solution.
TruthSpot.ai is the only online platform dedicated to Generation Z and Alpha, teaching students to detect AI-generated videos, audio, and images through practical learning. The learning process takes place in three stages, including an Introductory Class that covers the fundamentals of deepfakes and visual and auditory cues; an Intermediate Class that teaches students how to protect their identities, reputations, and trust in online environments; and an Advanced Class that teaches students how to investigate suspicious materials to determine their legitimacy. Within 45 minutes, one can complete all 16 modules and earn a microcredential. My first draft of the curriculum included all the relevant information on algorithmic manipulation and forensic media analysis. At least that’s what I thought. When I ran focus groups with actual middle and high school students, one told me, “These courses feel like homework. They aren’t fun to watch. I stopped paying attention to it after the second module.” I went back and rebuilt the entire curriculum around “Spot-the-Fake” challenges that put students in realistic scenarios and asked them to evaluate whether a video, audio clip, or image is real or generated, shifting from theoretical explanations to real-time, dynamic learning. Our new version was a success. We create educational videos using CapCut, Canva, and Google Text-to-Speech. These low-cost, efficient applications let us offer these courses for free. Ten student ambassadors run peer-to-peer outreach in their communities, and our three-person expert advisory board reviews the curriculum for accuracy and age-appropriateness.
Impact: How has your project created impact / made a difference so far? Or, if at an early stage, what will impact look like?
TruthSpot has an 82% course completion rate, higher than the 15% average Harvard Business Review reports for all online courses. 4,000 students from 20 countries have earned a micro-credential after completing our 45-minute course. We found that those who take our training courses detect 20% more deepfakes than those who complete conventional media literacy courses. We have raised over $7,000 in funding from the Riley’s Way Call for Kindness Fellowship, the MyImpact grant, and individual donations. A high school sophomore detected deepfake videos in her group chat because of her TruthSpot.ai training. She recognized the images were AI-generated long before they became widely known. She told us, “I knew what to look out for. I was able to warn my friends rather than stand by and believe the imagery.” After completing our online course, a middle schooler showed his grandmother how to recognize AI-generated voice clones. His grandmother later told his mother that this was the most practical thing he had ever taught her. Our work has earned recognition from New York State Governor Kathy Hochul, Senator Andrew Gounardes, Assembly Member Jo Anne Simon, and NYC Council Member Lincoln Restler.
Your Innovation: What is different about your project compared to other programs or solutions already out there? How is your project new or innovative?
TruthSpot.ai is the world’s first platform that uses an interactive online learning environment to teach teens to identify AI-generated videos, audio, and images. We do not compete with media literacy initiatives. We have created a new category: Deepfake Literacy for Kids. I initially envisioned a more technological, less interactive approach to TruthSpot. Focus group responses made it clear that engaging content mattered more than being academic. I learned to embrace an iterative mindset, which meant I felt comfortable releasing an imperfect product, gathering feedback, and refining it. We conducted focus groups, and participants said my first draft made them feel like they were doing homework. So I rewrote the entire curriculum as Spot-the-Fake challenges. Now the content is fun, engaging, and specifically geared to the Gen Z and Gen Alpha market. Our educational videos are created using CapCut, Canva, and Google Text-to-Speech, low-cost, efficient tools that let us offer these courses for free. Our student-led ambassador model means our customer acquisition cost trends toward zero as the network scales. Our advisory board includes Dr. Britt Paris, an Associate Professor of Information Science at Rutgers University, and Rupa Pandit, a technology investor who evaluates our courses to ensure they are teen-appropriate and accurate.
How many people are on your team?
14
Your team: What role(s) do your team members play? How do you share leadership with them?
I’m the Founder and CEO. Our expert advisory board comprises professors and professionals in AI ethics, child safety, education, and technology. The board guides curriculum accuracy and age-appropriateness, but it doesn't decide what resonates with youth. Our ambassadors do. Our ten student ambassadors actively create content. They co-create and lead by testing new curriculum modules and recruiting other students.
What’s Next: What are the next steps you plan to take to grow or strengthen your project over the next year? If your project is still in the idea stage, describe the steps you will take over the next three months to launch or begin developing it.
From now through June 2027, we aim to grow our team from 10 to 50 ambassadors, develop real-time detection software, and explore additional collaborations with summer camps and after-school programs. This summer, we partnered with three summer camps to reach an additional 1,500 students. Rather than a standard class, we are working with camp counselors to turn “Spot-the-Fake” challenges into a fun nightly camp activity. In the fall, we will expand into after-school programs to reach another 1,000 students, focusing on the communities most vulnerable to the risks of deepfakes and digital scams. We plan to prepare a Student AI Safety Brief using information from our student focus group discussions and academic literature, and to meet with the New York City Board of Education to encourage the Board to consider adding deepfake detection training to its curriculum. By June 2027, we hope to train and certify 10,000 students.
How do you encourage other people to join your project or learn about the problem you’re working on? If you have a new idea, tell us how you will do this in the future.
TruthSpot’s community involvement centers on our student ambassador program. Our ambassadors test new curriculum modules, identify new types of deepfakes and scams in their own feeds, recruit other students to become ambassadors, and share insights on which detection tools would be most useful. We meet monthly to discuss what is working and where to focus next. When students complete our certification, we encourage them to list their TruthSpot microcredential on their resumes, LinkedIn, and Instagram, and to talk about what they learned with friends, siblings, and classmates. This creates a network effect, with each certified student organically reaching hundreds of others. We also plan to continue engaging with people through media coverage, including press in various publications and commendations from state and local elected officials.
