Suhani Gupta

Suhani Gupta (17), from the United States, grew up navigating her own mental health crisis, including a psychiatric hold, while watching classmates silently struggle with cyberbullying, academic pressure, and undiagnosed neurodevelopmental conditions. As a South Asian teenager in a high-achieving California school district, she saw firsthand how stigma and inadequate school systems let children down long before a crisis hits—and it made her wonder how many other students carried the same silence.

That question led her to found Neuro Health Alliance, a youth-led nonprofit that has grown into a global network of over 120 chapters across 9 countries, with more than 300 trained peer leaders delivering mental health programming to over 210,000 young people. She also designed STOP Cyberbullying, the first gamified, scenario-based cyberbullying prevention curriculum built for schools, where students face real consequences for their choices in digital scenarios. It’s now used county-wide across Alameda County schools, developed alongside educators, city governments, and congressional offices.

With her family’s early encouragement, Suhani has taken her message even further—delivering a keynote at the United Nations General Assembly that reached over 700 delegates and ambassadors, proving that one teenager’s story can spark change on a global scale.