When cybercriminals nearly swindled her 85-year-old grandfather in February 2024, Tejasvi Manoj decided to act. The then-16-year-old junior at Lebanon Trail High School in Frisco, Texas, created a website called Shield Seniors that aims to educate people over 60 about online scams, analyze suspicious messages and links, and direct victims to the appropriate authorities.
The project has earned national attention: Tejasvi was named TIME’s Kid of the Year for 2025 and received recognition as a TIME for Kids Service Star. The site, currently in private preview, grew out of a personal close call and broader federal data showing why seniors are prime targets for fraud. In 2024 the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center logged nearly 860,000 reports of online crime with potential losses exceeding $16 billion; acts of fraud targeting people over 60 accounted for nearly $5 billion, a 32% increase from the previous year. The Federal Trade Commission reports that the number of older adults losing more than $10,000 to online scams rose fourfold from 2020 to 2024, and losses of $100,000 or more increased sevenfold to $445 million in 2024 alone.
Tejasvi said she built the site to give older adults tools for independence and dignity online. Shield Seniors is organized into four principal sections: "Learn," which offers basic internet-safety guidance such as creating strong passwords and recognizing common scam tactics; "Ask," a chatbot designed to provide brief, plain-language answers; "Analyze," which allows users to upload suspicious emails or texts for AI review; and "Report," which links users to 14 private and government agencies that accept fraud complaints, including the FBI, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and AARP.
The site’s AI tool, Tejasvi said, assesses uploaded messages with about 95% accuracy and explains why a message is likely fraudulent so users can learn what warning signs to look for. The chatbot limits replies to two sentences or less to suit older adults who did not grow up with the internet and can be overwhelmed by technical explanations, she said. Shield Seniors is designed with large type and a calming blue palette and was tested with her grandparents and other older community members before public preview.
Tejasvi learned to code starting in eighth grade and built Shield Seniors largely with her own skills, using Java, Python and HTML. Both of her parents work in IT, and she has received mentorship from a neighbor who works in cybersecurity. Her work on the site has also drawn attention from AARP, which arranged a meeting after a local news story and shared the project with its network.
The site relies on a free AI engine in its current iteration, a limitation Tejasvi said she hopes to remedy through fundraising to secure a commercial platform and broaden access. Shield Seniors won honorable mention in the 2024 Congressional App Challenge; Tejasvi gave a TEDx talk in 2025 about building "digital bridges" across generations and leads seminars at assisted-living facilities to demonstrate the site and teach seniors about scams.
Beyond the website, Tejasvi is active in her community. She is an Eagle Scout, plays violin in her school orchestra, tutors Bhutanese refugees through an education nonprofit and volunteers with the North Texas Food Bank Young Advocates Council. She plans to study computer science in college with a minor in artificial intelligence or cybersecurity, and has applied to schools including the University of Texas at Austin, Georgia Tech and Purdue.
Advocates for older adults and cybersecurity professionals say initiatives like Shield Seniors are increasingly important. Seniors frequently hold retirement savings and may be unfamiliar with the tactics scammers use, including impersonation, fake charities and urgent requests that pressure targets into immediate payments. Reporting fraud can be difficult for victims who feel embarrassed, Tejasvi said, so the site emphasizes that reporting helps protect others.
"This is supposed to bring people a sense of 'You’re not alone,'" she said. "A lot of people are embarrassed that they got scammed, but this isn’t something you should be embarrassed about. It’s just a learning experience. You should report it to help make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else."
Tejasvi said she wants to expand in-person outreach to more assisted-living facilities, though some locations have told her to return after she gains more experience. For now, she continues to develop Shield Seniors, fundraise to upgrade its AI capabilities and push for wider adoption of simple, accessible digital-literacy tools for older adults. She also urges family members to check in on relatives and help them learn to navigate the online world safely.
The project illustrates a broader trend of young technologists building tools aimed at social problems tied to digital life. Shield Seniors remains a work in progress, but its creator sees measurable early impact: seminars with engaged attendees, a private-preview site that has identified scams for users, and new connections with organizations that serve older adults. As online fraud statistics rise, Tejasvi’s approach combines technical fixes with hands-on education to try to reduce seniors’ vulnerability to cybercrime.