NYC teen wins national kindness grant to expand deepfake literacy course

By AI, Created 11:47 AM UTC, May 20, 2026, /AGP/ – A 17-year-old Stuyvesant High School junior won Riley’s Way Foundation’s Call For Kindness competition for TruthSpot.ai, a free course that teaches students to spot deepfakes and other synthetic media. The grant will help the project scale to 10,000 students by May 2027 as schools and students confront harder-to-detect AI-generated content.

Why it matters: - AI-generated videos, images and audio are getting harder to tell from real content. - TruthSpot.ai is trying to close that gap by teaching students digital media literacy and critical thinking online. - The project already gives students a microcredential they can use on college applications, resumes and LinkedIn. - Riley’s Way funding gives the course a path to reach many more students before May 2027.

What happened: - Yana Bijoor, a 17-year-old junior at Stuyvesant High School in New York City, won Riley’s Way Foundation’s national Call For Kindness competition. - Bijoor built TruthSpot.ai, a free course focused on spotting deepfakes and other synthetic media. - Riley’s Way will support TruthSpot’s expansion to 10,000 students by May 2027. - Since TruthSpot launched in March 2025, 1,500 students have earned the microcredential.

The details: - The course takes 45 minutes to complete. - TruthSpot uses 16 interactive modules. - Students earn a microcredential after finishing the course. - Riley’s Way awards young leaders grants of up to $5,000 to launch or expand social impact projects. - Call For Kindness is part of Riley’s Way Foundation’s effort to build a youth-led kindness movement. - The program also provides leadership training and an inclusive community for young changemakers. - Bijoor will join the 2026 Riley’s Way Call For Kindness Fellowship. - The fellowship includes strategic mentorship, professional development and a peer-learning network. - Riley’s Way has invested in more than 3,500 young leaders nationwide and provided more than $4.5 million in funding, mentorship and leadership development.

Between the lines: - The win gives TruthSpot more than money; it also plugs the project into a national network of young leaders. - The focus on kindness pairs with a media-literacy mission, signaling an approach to online safety that stresses both skepticism and empathy. - Riley’s Way is backing youth-led projects across issues including food insecurity, homelessness, education and mental health, which suggests TruthSpot fits a broader civic-impact portfolio.

What’s next: - TruthSpot aims to reach 10,000 students by May 2027. - Bijoor will spend the year in the fellowship working with mentors and peers. - Riley’s Way will continue funding and supporting young leaders through Call For Kindness and related programming.

The bottom line: - A New York teen’s deepfake literacy course just got a national boost, and the goal now is to turn a student project into a much larger online-safety tool.