‹‹ Colorado Matters

13-Year-Old Inventor Creates App To Fight Opioid Addiction

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8min 56sec
Michael Sakas/CPR News
<p>13-year-old Gitanjali Rao of Lone Tree, Colo., in a lab at Denver Water.</p>

Opioid addiction has devastated many Colorado families. More than 500 people died from overdoses in 2017 from both prescription opioids and illegal opioids such as heroin. Gitanjali Rao from Lone Tree has invented an app to help physicians and opioid users monitor addiction. Local scientists were wowed not just by the invention – but by the fact that the inventor is 13 years old.