Virginia High School Senior Launches AI Job Platform for Neurodivergent Applicants

Industry Pulse News Desk · 2026-09-27

Navya Tuteja created Raaha, a free platform that scores job listings for neurodivergent candidates, attracting more than 1,000 users in two months.

A 17-year-old high school senior from Northern Virginia has launched a software platform designed to help neurodivergent job seekers evaluate workplace listings before submitting applications. Navya Tuteja, a senior at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology outside Washington, D.C., developed the software to address accessibility gaps in standard job descriptions.

The platform, named Raaha, evaluates job postings against specific workplace factors to provide candidates with an assessment of daily employment fit. Within two months of its launch, the free platform registered more than 1,000 users and aggregated over 20,000 job listings. Tuteja bootstrapped the project independently and plans to eventually monetize the platform through employer subscriptions and listings optimization services.

Tuteja credited her mother, who is hard of hearing, with inspiring the platform after noticing that corporate recruitment postings often focus heavily on requirements while remaining silent on daily work environments. Although Tuteja serves as president of her school's artificial intelligence club, she personally authored the underlying algorithm for the software and used automated tools primarily for web design assistance and administrative organization.

The student relies on personal coding without using automated assistance for academic coursework, citing school network restrictions on generative tools as a factor that encouraged independent technical work. Tuteja plans to attend college following graduation, though she noted she may consider managing the startup full-time if user adoption continues at its current trajectory.