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PMRC 2018 : INVITED SPEAKERS : MAKING A DIFFERENCE THROUGH TEACHING
ANAND KUMAR
ANAND KUMAR, MATHEMATICIAN AND FOUNDER, SUPER 30
Anand Kumar is best known for Super 30, a highly successful, free coaching service for talented students from underprivileged backgrounds who aspire to enter the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). Kumar’s life story has now inspired Bollywood to make a biopic on him.
“Times have changed. Today every parent in our country wants his or her child to have an education. Even a poor farmer in a rural area is ready to part with his piece of land to finance his child’s education, so he/she grows and has a better life,” said Kumar.
A program that started 15 years back in a rented classroom and two students, has now sent 396 out of the 450 students coached, to the IITs. Kumar is in the Limca Book of Records for his contribution and Time magazine included Super 30 in its Best of Asia 2010 list. He has been awarded the Rashtriya Bal Kalyan Award by the President of India. Kumar proudly said that he does not take any financial support for the program from any government or private agency, nor does he accept donations for it.
Pointing to the inadequate learning environment in rural India, he said, “There are so many bright children, who just need an opportunity. They can then do wonders and succeed in life.”
Talking about his humble beginning, he said as a child he had dreamed big and wanted to become a teacher and mathematician. His papers on mathematics solutions were published in foreign magazines even before he had completed his graduation. He was accepted at Cambridge University for post-graduate studies but he had to let go of that opportunity since his family couldn’t afford to pay for his flight ticket. Nobody came forward to fund it. And then with the sudden death of his father, his dream of going to Cambridge ended. He and his brother started selling papads to support the family.
In 1992, Kumar started a mathematics coaching center in Patna. In 2002, he started the Super 30 program. His wife, who is an IIT graduate, left a software job in Bangalore to teach chemistry at the center. “Now many from the government and private sector offer me donation, but till now I have not taken any donation. We fund the program through what we earn in the coaching center. My life goal is to keep on teaching,” he added.
Kumar’s mantras for success are: tremendous trust in the goal to be achieved, positive thinking, continuous hard work, and great patience.
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