HYDERABAD: We all know Neelakantha Bhanu Prakash Jonnalagadda from Moti Nagar, Hyderabad, is the fastest human calculator in the world with four world records for the same, breaking the records which were once held by math maestros such as Scott Flansburg and Shakuntala Devi. He is now using his special status and the current lockdown to not just create student clusters master maths, but also make it fun for them.
The 20-year-old final year BSc Mathematics student of Delhi’s St Stephen’s College is the founder of Exploring Infinities, a company which is teaching and training students in speed mental arithmetic through the use of lectures and workshops. While his courseware products are for sale, the current project is to just reach out to more for no fee. “This lockdown period will have an adverse impact on school education and learning in students who are currently in their class VIII-XII. Being someone who’s been an active part of the education ecosystem, I believe that educators like me should contribute towards online resources for keeping the learning uninterrupted,” says Bhanu.
He has hence started conducting free classes for students of Class X and XI grade by collaborating with multiple online platforms and has also initiated a team of trainers who are creating math syllabus content in Telugu and Hindi. The math whiz who started his free classes with 80 students now has over 1,00,000 students and has received accolades. “The idea is to reach out to as many students as possible and teach them mathematics, make them quicker at arithmetic, keep them engaged with brain training games so that students use this time at home, productively,” he says.
Bhanu realised that three out of four students in India are math phobic. His mission is to make children across the country break out of math phobia and says that since there is time, at home, this lockdown can be transformed into a blessing in disguise. “For that to happen, Team Exploring Infinities, is pushing itself, finding multiple channels of content distribution” he adds. Incidentally, Bhanu uses social media channels including Instagram, Helo, Sharechat and TikTok Live to reach out to his target group of over one lakh students.
Exploring Infinities, under Neelakantha Bhanu has worked with 25+ government schools in Telangana on dismantling math phobia among children with multiple training sessions under the project name ‘Project Infinity: Arithmetic Literacy in Govt Schools’ and will be extended to 150 schools by the year-end. “Exploring Infinities has started recording Telugu and Hindi Math Curriculum Lecture Series - Project Lockdown. These, along with daily exercises are being circulated across hundreds of government school children who don’t have access to high bandwidth through WhatsApp discussion groups,” says Bhanu, talking about his team’s efforts. His team believes that it is bringing out changes in the education world by focusing specifically on arithmetic literacy and its importance in cognitive ability development of a child.
The Flow Chart
Exploring Infinities has also started a two week digital courses open for students across schools in India in cognitive ability enhancement through arithmetic games and exercises. “We identify student clusters through on-ground NGOs such as ‘Youth For Seva’ and ‘United Way Hyderabad’. We create clusters and make a schedule and forward one video every week and each group has a leader and they go through the lecture. These lectures are in Telugu, Hindi or English,” he says.
Hyderabad-based math genius Neelakantha’s #ProjectLockdown is all about giving daily (and fun) math exercises to hundreds of government school children who don’t have access to high bandwidth through WhatsApp discussion groups. “The mission is to make them learn and get excited about arithmetic,” he says
— Manju Latha Kalanidhi kalanidhi@newindianexpress.com @mkalanidhi