Flashback: Your palms grow sweaty and a million butterflies flutter in your stomach. After all, it’s the morning of the mathematics exam... no amount of studying seems to calm your anxious mind. Well, even while or before you study, you seem to get anxious; you’d just completely avoid the subject if you could.
You didn’t know it then, but ‘math anxiety’ is a real thing that generations of school students have had to grapple with. Neelakantha Bhanu Prakash has been changing that with his edtech startup Bhanzu. The 25-year-old, who has broken four world records and 50 Limca Book Records — surpassing records held by Scott Flansburg and Shakuntala Devi — became the ‘world’s fastest human calculator’ at just 16. To date, he is unbeatable, but he has set his sights on what he calls a greater mission: to make math education accessible to 100 million people, not just the top 1% of society. Bhanzu is the solution, and the founder tells us all about it.
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Tell us about your mathematical journey.
I studied at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan’s Public School in Jubilee Hills. At the age of five, I met with an accident that fractured my skull; in the days that followed, my mother, on doctors’ advice, introduced me to puzzles to keep my brain stimulated. I found it exciting, much like a sport, and grew increasingly drawn to it, the way others might be to music or cricket.
But from ages five to ten, I was actually quite mediocre at math. At 10, I began competing in arithmetic contests, placing around seventh or tenth in the state. At eleven, I won the National Arithmetic Championship. I was soon among the best in the country.
My maths journey felt similar to that of an athlete; I used to train my brain every morning for around four hours! So, I often refer to myself as a ‘mental athlete’. I have been blessed with a journey that helps me understand mathematics as both an art form and a sport.
What inspired you to start Bhanzu?
As a teenager, I did many math stage shows across countries, and something in me wanted to create a larger impact. I asked myself: ‘How can I make a whole new generation fall in love with mathematics?’ The goal was never to create toppers; sure, improved grades can be one of the byproducts. But this was about a mindset shift — removing ‘math anxiety’, something that has plagued so many of us through the years.
It doesn’t help that math teachers can be these antagonist characters, saying that math is for some people and not for others. We understood a lot about the school system before jumping onto the startup bandwagon. While we criticise musicians, actors, content creators and so many others, we do not criticise our curricula enough, do we?
In 2020, with an aim to create the world’s most thought-through math curriculum for students from UKG to Grade 9, we founded edtech company Bhanzu. It is a global maths learning platform that helps students build strong mathematical thinking skills through interactive teaching, puzzles, mental calculation techniques, and conceptual understanding — all designed to make maths fun and boost confidence.
Summing up Bhanzu:
Live online classes: these emphasise the why before the what or how. Specially trained teachers use storytelling, real-life examples, games, and challenges to make lessons memorable.
Bhanzu Buddy: AI-powered 24/7 assistant designed to offer instant explanations, real-time feedback, and personalised support to every Bhanzu student.
Bhanzu Play app: gamified daily practice, competitions, leaderboards, coins and rewards.
Bhanzu Insights: an automated AI system that evaluates every Bhanzu class (live or recorded) on key teaching metrics. It empowers teachers with real-time, actionable feedback.
Parent app: enables monitoring of schedules, teacher feedback, and progress.
How does Bhanzu’s approach differ from traditional math education?
One of the silliest things an education system can do is teach a child how to solve a linear equation without first explaining why variables even exist. What would a world without variables look like? For example, in a world without algebra, there would be no Zoom calls, television wouldn’t stream, the internet wouldn’t function, Wi-Fi wouldn’t work, and playing games like Roblox wouldn’t be possible.
So, we focus on three key aspects: a well-experimented curriculum, online live classes with real teachers, and AI-powered personalisation. We’ve tested over 30 curriculum variants to understand how to teach math effectively.
Our technology plays a crucial role. We use AI to identify learning gaps and create customised learning pathways. We’ve launched Bhanzu Buddy, an AI assistant that can interact with children, answer math questions, and adapt explanations based on a child’s interests. If a child likes Superman, the AI will use Superman-related examples to explain mathematical concepts.
How do you make math education culturally relevant?
We recognise that learning differs across cultural and economic groups. For example, number systems vary in different languages. In Telugu, 29 is ‘iravayi tommidi’, broken into ‘20 and nine’, but in Hindi, it’s ‘untis’, which is ‘30 minus one’. Our teachers undergo cultural sensitivity training to ensure the learning experience is appropriate and relatable.
What’s your ultimate vision?
To make math education accessible to 100 million people, not just the top 1% of society. This means teaching in multiple languages, understanding cultural nuances, and making math exciting. We want to reach children beyond just Tier-1 cities, potentially offering programmes for free. During the COVID lockdown, we taught two million children by streaming video lectures on television through ‘Project Lockdown’.
Do you believe anyone can become good at math?
Absolutely. Math is not about being a prodigy. It’s about creating curiosity. With the right approach, a seven-year-old can do algebra, and a 10-year-old can understand calculus — not through forced practice, but by making them genuinely curious about the subject.
In fact, in my mind, the best mathematicians have been artists and filmmakers. Take Steven Strogatz, an American mathematician who teaches math through storytelling. Or German film score composer and music producer Hans Zimmer… in many ways, such individuals understand math better than I do.
What are your thoughts on the startup ecosystem in Hyderabad?
I think the startup ecosystem is getting better by the day; a lot of consumer companies sprouting in Hyderabad is a great sign, especially since we’ve always been more into software services.
Education as a sector has been evolving, but there is much confusion around how tech will disrupt it. Although it wasn’t easy to establish ourselves in the edtech space initially, we have managed to stand among the best today.
But when I look around at companies in this sector, I also understand why some of them failed — they stuck to the traditional, century-old way of learning math, with the main focus being on ‘acing tests’. Then there are companies that make learning totally gamified, and while this gives instant dopamine, it isn’t the best solution. There is no shortcut to learning, and Bhanzu essentially strikes a balance. In the coming years, edtech companies should aim to provide children with longer gratification cycles of learning.