Greenwich, Connecticut · Class of 2027
Khushi
Choudhary
I build brands, design how they look, and study what AI does to their meaning.
Venture 1 · founded 2021 at age 13Baked by KhushiA state-licensed home bakery I baked, designed, photographed and ran myself. 60 to 80% of profits go to charity.
Venture 2 · since September 2025
The Entrepreneurial Teen
Mentors, workshops and 82+ Greenwich resources for teen founders, sponsored by the town's Youth Commission.
6 mentors · 52 teen founders · live workshops
Venture 3 · launched February 2026OurSocialAIVoice-first AI in 6 languages, live at Barefoot College in Tilonia, India. Pictured with its founder, Bunker Roy.
Research 1 and 2 · sole author
2
research papers on AI, branding and culture
2026
9
international conferences for my research, two still ahead
Donated over
$20,000
to 5 charities from bakery profits ↓
In the pressGreenwich Free Press · Greenwich Time · Patch
Profile map
Work experience · 2026
Visual Media and Marketing Intern, Design Brewery
Branding for a client's pet food brand ↗
Civic leadership
Commissioner, Board Member and Subcommittee Leader
First Selectman's Youth Commission ↗
A, A Summer 2026
Disruptive Marketing · Start-Ups and IP Law
Future of the Business World · Summer 2025
Ventures3
Businesses built on brand, design and media
Connecticut Cottage Food Operation · sole proprietor
Baked by Khushi
- Every cake, cookie and macaron here was baked, decorated and photographed by me
- Custom orders, pop-ups, event catering and charity fundraisers
- Logo, packaging, menus, website and ads designed by me
- 60 to 80% of profits given to 5 charities
The logo I drew at 13 ↗
Given away
60-80%
of bakery profits
Where the profits went · 5 charities I chose
Over $20,000 donated
Save the ChildrenUkraine aid
Kids in CrisisGreenwich
YWCA GreenwichChildren's counseling
Golden Lights FoundationPediatric cancer research
One Simple WishKids in foster care
Custom orders
300
iced cookies in a single school order, priced and invoiced by me
More on Instagram
@baked_by_khushi ↗
Photos are mine, from the bakery's site and Instagram.
Golden Lights Foundation
A race-day pop-up for pediatric cancer research
60% of profits went to the foundation: over $1,000 from my September sales.
The race I baked for
Catering
Desserts for the Greenwich A Cappella Spring Showcase after-party
Kids in Crisis · May 2022
A two-day pop-up bake sale
80% of proceeds went to Kids in Crisis in Greenwich.
Founder and mentor
The Entrepreneurial Teen
The mentors, workshops and resources I had to find on my own, in one place for teen founders. I built the brand, the site and the content, and I pitched it to the Youth Commission, which now sponsors it.
Home pageConnect. Inspire. Thrive. ↗
Teen founders
52
sign-ups in the first 8 months
Greenwich directory
82+
local resources, plus a global library
WorkshopsWorkshops for teen founders ↗
Mentor network
Local government, global marketing and academia
Including the Town's Youth Services Bureau Administrator, a UK marketing executive and university professors.
Founder and developer
OurSocialAI
Voice-first AI for social organizations. People ask by voice or text in 6 languages and get answers from an organization's own knowledge. It started with a 2024 visit to Barefoot College in Tilonia, Rajasthan.
Home pageA fifty-year-old organization almost nobody online knows exists ↗
What it is
AI for nonprofits and social enterprises
Each organization gets an assistant built on its own knowledge, so people can ask in their language and get answers grounded in the work.
Barefoot College
50
years of training rural women as solar engineers
Live deploymentTransform Tilonia's mission with Social AI ↗
A directory of nonprofits
- Barefoot College
- Goonj
- Oxfam
- Americares
- Teach For America
- Save the Children US
Civic leadership
First Selectman's Youth Commission, Town of Greenwich
Media & comms
9th grade to present · government-appointed youth body
Commissioner and Board Member
I work directly with the First Selectman of Greenwich and the Town's Youth Services Bureau Administrator to turn teen-led projects into real programs for the community.
Leadership role
Subcommittee Leader, The Entrepreneurial Teen
I lead a peer subcommittee that brings the platform to Greenwich teens through events and workshops.
What I've led
- Pitched The Entrepreneurial Teen to the Commission and won its sponsorship
- Lead the subcommittee that takes it to Greenwich teens
- Organized workshops that put teen founders in a room with mentors
- Recruited 6 mentors, including the head of the FSYC
- Co-developed the Greenwich Directory of 82+ local resources with the Commission
- Ran a Valentines Bake Box fundraiser for the FSYC 2026 Scholarship
Workshops
Hands-on sessions for teen founders, run with the Commission
Greenwich Directory
82+
local resources for teen founders, co-developed with the Commission
Mentors recruited
6
from local government, the UK and two universities
The Commission
46
commissioners from 7 area schools, per its Spring 2026 newsletter
Why it matters to me
The Commission turned something I built alone into something the town backs, and gave me a team to take it further.
Research2
Media, culture and communication · sole author on both
Research 1 · sole author
Branding Without Belonging
How AI-Generated Content Marketing Erases the Cultural Context of Heritage Foods
I asked ChatGPT 5.2, Claude 4.5 and Gemini 3 to market 6 heritage foods, using 36 prompts, and scored every answer with a rubric I built, the Cultural Depth Score.
Prompts framed for selling produced far less cultural depth than prompts framed for preservation. The knowledge is there. Commercial framing hides it.
Cultural Depth Score
- Ritual Roots
- Scriptural Lineage
- Diaspora Identity
- Craft
- Symbolic Meaning
- Commodification
Method
36
prompts across 3 AI models and 6 foods
Sharpest drop · Modak
4.0 → 0
The Ganesh Chaturthi offering scored 4.0 of 8 in open-ended and preservation prompts, and 0 when the prompt was commercial.
Conferences
7
conferences in 6 countries ↓
SSRN · 28 pages · posted August 2026Generative AI and the Homogenization of Brand Identity ↗
Research 2 · sole author
Generative AI and the Homogenization of Brand Identity
When AI designs a logo, a palette, a tagline and a visual language, the result looks polished, but it lacks the history, culture and real-world context that make a brand feel original.
Hypothesis 1
Convergence
AI-made brands for unrelated products look alike.
Hypothesis 2
Surface authenticity
Heritage cues without the history behind them.
Real brands vs the AI average
The same five categories, designed by AI ↓
Real brands look nothing alike. AI versions converge on cream backgrounds, earth tones, sans-serif type and short taglines.
Logos belong to their owners and are shown for comparison. The AI row illustrates the finding; it is not data from the paper.
Method · UEQ
Real and AI-generated brands scored on the User Experience Questionnaire
Corpus
27
AI-generated brands, plus 10 side-by-side comparisons with iconic real ones
Conferences
2
Singapore, then Geneva in late October ↓
Read Research 2
On SSRN, ResearchGate and Preprints.org ↗
Where I present my research9
International conferences, 2026 · snapshots from each conference site
Research 1 · Branding Without Belonging
7 international conferences: New York, Cambridge, Lisbon, Zurich, Dublin and Princeton so far, and Osaka on October 10 to 12.
I wrote the paper and presented it myself, twice virtually. Every tile links to the conference site.
Presented virtually · JuneCambridge, UK13th HSCONF · My abstract in the conference book ↗
Presented virtually · July
Lisbon
New Directions: Beyond Borders · 24th New Directions in the Humanities ↗
Presented · July
Zurich
11th ICMHS · Modern Approaches in Humanities and Social Sciences ↗
Presented · July 24-26
Dublin
5th ICSH21 · Social Sciences and Humanities in the 21st Century ↗
Presented · Aug 20-21
Princeton
44th RAIS Conference · Research Association for Interdisciplinary Studies · paper in the proceedings ↗
Read Research 1
On SSRN, and in the RAIS Conference Proceedings ↗
Presenting · Oct 10-12
Osaka
16th Food Studies · Living with Water: Food and Life, at the University of Osaka ↗
Published · RAIS Proceedings
DOI 10.5281/zenodo.22801410 ↗
Research 2
2
conferences, first in Singapore, next in Geneva
Presented · Oct 1-2
Singapore
11th Communication & Media Studies · With Nanyang Technological University ↗
Presenting · Oct 23-25Geneva9th ICSHA · Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts ↗
Design and visual communication
Visual arts · paid agency work and self-taught brand design
Visual Media and Marketing Intern · Design Brewery · 2026 · paid, about 12 weeks
Client
Lucy & Bo
Designing trust for a premium pet food brand
I studied the trust signals premium brands use, wrote competitor briefs, and designed logos and mood boards for the client. The question was the same one behind my research: what makes people believe a brand before they've tried it?
Lucy & Bo · the category
Pet food lives on trust: owners decide from the bag, the name and the look. Icons are illustrations, not the client's artwork.
Lucy & Bo
3
logo concepts
Lucy & Bo
3
mood boards
Trust-signal research
Aesop · Le Labo · Huel
What makes a premium brand feel trustworthy before you've tried it, applied to a pet food brand.
Competitor briefs
Mapping how rival pet brands look and speak to owners
The agency
Design Brewery
Design, branding and marketing
Communication design
Three versions of one message, each written for a different reader
One leads with data, one with a story, one splits the page between teens and mentors. Every piece carries the Youth Commission's sponsorship and a way to sign up.
The identity
Data on the flyers
- 60% of teens want to start a business
- 45% want to learn from people who've done it
- 67% are held back by fear of failing alone
Source on the flyers: Junior Achievement USA
Food photography
Visual arts · styled, lit and shot by me · click any photo to browse
Visual artsCulture, color and composition
Every bake is also a photograph. I style the props, set up the backdrops, light the set and shoot it myself.
Indian sweets next to Western classics, seasons and holidays, pop culture and pure craft. I read food as culture here, the same way my research does.
Press
Greenwich Free Press · Greenwich Time · Patch · WGCH 1490 radio
Media & comms
Two student reporters visited the pop-up bakery in Riverside, sampled the treats and wrote up the business.
A school-wide gift drive for Danita's Children in Haiti. I'm in the article's first photo, in the red hat.
Radio
Interview with Robin Pastore on the bakery and its charity work
FSYC Newsletter · Spring 2026Commissioner Spotlight
Greenwich Free Press · May 19, 2022
“I'm really interested in art,” she said.
The paper credited the treats' appeal to “their exquisite designs.”
Greenwich Free Press · May 13, 2022
“I am self-taught and love to experiment with the flavors and recipes.”
Greenwich Free Press · April 2022
$1,700
of about $2,000 in one month's sales went to charity
Coursework and recognition
Academics · the core
AcademicsBusiness
Secondary School Program · Summer 2026 · 8 college credits
MGMT S-550 · grade A
Disruptive Marketing: Innovation, Technology, and Globalization
How new technology and bold marketing upend industries, how start-ups take on established companies, and how to design marketing that works across cultures and digital platforms, through global case studies.
LSTU S-131 · grade A
Start-Ups from the Perspective of Business and Intellectual Property Law
Entrepreneurship and IP law: patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets and contracts. We built funding and product pitches, read real legal documents and argued cases in mock court.
Global Youth Program · Summer 2025
Future of the Business World
Entrepreneurship, design thinking and global market trends, taught by Wharton faculty. Capstone: a SWOT and PESTLE analysis of a real company, presented to faculty reviewers.
Greenwich High School chapter · 2025
2nd in Connecticut, Principles of Marketing
Qualified for and competed at the International Career Development Conference. This season: Start-Up Business Plan, featuring The Entrepreneurial Teen.
Fall 2025
Honorable Mention
Closer to home
- Reading Champions tutor, Greenwich United Way
- Varsity A squash since 9th grade
- Volunteer, Hindu Temple in Wilton
- English, Hindi, conversational French
Sports
The fun part · Greenwich High School squash
Greenwich High School
Varsity A squash since 9th grade
FAA and CISL leagues · practice twice a week in season, training all year
Contact
Say hello
Order a cake ↗