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As technology advances rapidly, seniors aged 65 and up struggle to keep up, making them prime targets for digital scammers. Most live on fixed incomes with no way to rebuild lost savings. Social isolation makes things worse. Many lack family support and turn to strangers online for connection. Cognitive decline and limited digital literacy create more vulnerabilities. Scammers know this and exploit the combination of accumulated savings, technology gaps, and loneliness. Prote

This challenge has taught me the art of ideating, prototyping, testing, and revising. For example, the initial version of SasoGPT was, in my dad’s words, "a drunk Craigslist," which was harsh but accurate. The font was too small. The process of uploading a suspicious message was too complicated. I had built something that worked in theory but failed for the actual people who needed it. After further revisions, I brought the updated version to a senior resource fair and ask

SasoGPT is an AI-powered fraud prevention platform that combines game-based scam literacy education and a free-to-use scam detection tool. By blending automated scam analysis with gamified learning, SasoGPT helps users not only avoid individual scams but also build lasting confidence online. Users can screengrab or take a picture of the content they want reviewed. My tool will provide a risk assessment, identify suspicious activity, and direct the user to educational content

My journey started in the fall of 10th grade, when I conducted an independent research paper titled "How AI Growth Empowers the Financial Scam Crisis." The research revealed how disproportionately seniors are victimized, and I couldn't stop thinking about the people behind the numbers. I often thought of my grandma, who once asked if a video of a pomeranian dog performing Olympic dives into a pool was real or AI-generated. Even after I explained multiple times that it was f

Today's solutions for scam prevention are fragmented. While protective services exist, they operate in segmented silos, each addressing only one piece of the whole puzzle. Pre-existing solutions can be classified into three categories.  The first are education-only approaches. Typically, they come in the form of state financial protection departments and federal agencies, providing scam literacy through PSAs and outreach programs. These educational resources definitely help p

Millions of older adults are losing their life savings to the increasingly sophisticated digital scams empowered by AI, yet today's system offers almost no meaningful protection. To highlight, research based on data from the FTC & FBI shows that Americans lost an estimated $13 billion to scams in 2024. And people 60 and older accounted for $2.4 billion of those losses, and the actual figure is likely much higher, since many seniors don't report scams. The root causes of this

Scammers are getting smarter each day. They often pose as representatives of government agencies to trick you into giving away personal information or money. Common impersonators include the IRS, Social Security Administration, and Medicare. They create a sense of urgency, making you feel like you must act fast. Learning how these scams operate and how to recognize them can save you from becoming a victim. How These Scammers Try to Get You The initial contact often comes thro