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California Students Take the Lead on Tech and Mental Health
The Child Mind Institute is thrilled to announce the winners of the inaugural 10-Minute Challenge, a statewide competition that invited California students to take the lead in designing digital solutions that support healthier technology use and youth mental health.
Co-hosted by the Child Mind Institute and the state of California’s Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative (CYBHI), this first-of-its-kind challenge called on high school, undergraduate, and graduate students to create brief, research-informed digital tools — called single-session interventions (SSIs) — that help young people better understand and manage their relationship with technology.
Leveraging the Child Mind Institute’s open-source platform MindLogger, the winning interventions showcase an inspiring combination of lived experience, empathy, and scientific creativity. From mindfulness practices to media literacy and values-based reflection, these submissions demonstrate what’s possible when we empower young people to design solutions for their peers.
Our winning submissions, found below, are those that our interdisciplinary team of judges found most intriguing, and worthy of moving into the next phase of research validation.
"These interventions show that when we give youth the tools and the trust, they can create meaningful, scalable solutions that meet their peers where they are — online."
Dr. Harold S. Koplewicz, President and Medical Director, Child Mind Institute
High School Winners
Stephanie Leung, Mission San Jose High School
A reflective three-step intervention that guides teens in rethinking the impact of tech on their well-being, reclaiming personal agency, and setting healthy boundaries. The goal of this intervention isn’t to shame tech use, but to empower you to use tech in a way that supports your well-being, instead of working against it.
Zenia Rehan, Castilleja School
Helps participants examine their social media habits and create personalized SMART goals, incorporating peer testimonials and data collection to improve agency.
Riyana Melvani, Monte Vista High School
Guides participants through three self-paced activities to reflect on the content they consume, their digital self-presentation, and the impact of technology on their mental well-being, fostering a more intentional relationship with social media.
Undergraduate Winners
Selena Cuevas and Andrew Alvarez, UC Berkeley
A DBT-informed intervention that provides youth with tools to regulate emotional distress from social media through grounding, reframing, and resilience-building techniques. It seeks to give young people specific tools to handle emotional distress from social media, using strategies like grounding techniques, cognitive reframing, and resilience-building.
Diana Vega, UC Irvine
Teaches users how to recognize and reframe negative self-thoughts, particularly those triggered by comparison online, using relatable storytelling.
Sarah Arcelo, UC Berkeley
Uses mindfulness to help teens reflect on emotional triggers for screen use and develop healthier, more intentional tech habits.
Graduate Winners
Iris Khan, CSU San Bernardino
This intervention focuses on building psychological capital, guiding participants towards recognizing how social media can be a tool for avoidance behavior, and then reframing it as a resource that can help build meaningful social relationships.
Madhuri Sharma, Elizabeth Garci, and Srinidhi Vusirikala, Santa Clara University
A media literacy and GenAI intervention helping teens, especially girls, understand how AI alters body image online and build confidence in navigating digital spaces.
Ellie Xu, USC
Based in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, this intervention helps youth define their values and align their digital habits with those values through committed action.
What’s Next?
These winning entries will now move to the next phase of development and research, with the potential to be scaled across California as evidence-based mental health tools for young people. Select teams will have the opportunity to present their work at the International Single Session Therapies Symposium (SST5) and potentially co-author research with Child Mind Institute scientists.
Visit the 10-Minute Challenge event page to explore these winning entries and learn how the Child Mind Institute and the Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative are empowering the next generation of mental health advocates. We extend our heartfelt congratulations to all participants. Your voices, ideas, and leadership are shaping the future of youth mental health — and we can’t wait to see what you build next.
