Subtracting the phobia: This Telangana man reaches out to students online to teach them math for free

To overcome the recent academic hurdle of shut schools, the initiative has started recording Maths curriculum lecture series in Telugu and Hindi, besides English, as part of ‘Project Lockdown’.
Neelakantha Bhanu
Neelakantha Bhanu

Maths genius. Faster than a calculator. Mathematician Shakuntala Devi’s true successor. Neelakantha Bhanu Prakash Jonnalagadda is celebrated as all these and more. Bhanu, as he is fondly called, is the founder of Exploring Infinities—a company that teaches and trains students in speed mental arithmetic.

He follows a simple motto: Contextualise Maths for kids. To overcome the recent academic hurdle of shut schools, the initiative has started recording Maths curriculum lecture series in Telugu and Hindi, besides English, as part of ‘Project Lockdown’.

These, along with daily exercises, are being circulated across hundreds of government schoolchildren, who don’t have access to high bandwidth, through WhatsApp discussion groups. “The mission is to make them learn and get excited about arithmetic,” says this 20-year-old final year BSc Mathematics student of St Stephen’s College, Delhi, who processes numbers 10 times faster than the average human.   

Exploring Infinities has also started a two-week digital course for students across 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. Each group has a leader and they go through the lecture,” he says. The Maths whiz who started his free classes with 80 students now has over 1,00,000 students.

Currently he focuses on students of Class X and XI. In an effort to reach out to his target group, Bhanu has been conducting the classes by collaborating with multiple online platforms and has also initiated a team of trainers who are creating apt syllabus content. “These sessions will make up for the loss due to schools being shut down. By the time their academic year commences, students would have a strong Maths base,” he says. Bhanu uses social media channels such as Instagram, Helo, Sharechat and TikTok Live to reach out to students.

“Three out of four students in India are Maths-phobic. My mission is to make children across the country overcome this phobia. We are trying to find multiple channels of content distribution. If students are on TikTok, then I shall go to TikTok. The idea is to reach out to as many students as possible and teach them mathematics, make them quicker at arithmetic and keep them engaged with brain-training games so that they use this time at home productively,” he says. 

This Telugu boy, who holds four world records which were once held by Maths maestros such as Scott Flansburg and Shakuntala Devi, shares a personal win. “A Spanish pop song led me to break the mental speed barrier and calculate at 11 numbers per second. Its four-beat tune was similar to how I paced myself while calculating.”

Through Exploring Infinities, Bhanu has worked with over 25 government schools in Telangana under the project name ‘Project Infinity: Arithmetic Literacy in Govt Schools’. He is in plans to extend the initiative to 150 schools by year-end. “Arithmetic literacy and cognitive ability are important to the development of a child. Being someone who’s been an active part of the education ecosystem, I believe that educators like me should contribute towards online resources in order to keep learning uninterrupted,” he says.

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The New Indian Express
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