How to Disrupt Yourself

ANAND KUMAR: THE CAPTAIN WHO LIVES FOREVER 2

Today, we travel to India to visit a superhero that has built a powerful legacy and is still impacting generations in the education space.

Let me introduce you to Anand Kumar.

Anand Kumar (born 1 January 1973) is an Indian mathematician and a columnist for various national and international mathematical journals and magazines.

He is best known for his Super 30 program, which he started in Patna, Bihar in 2002, and which coaches economically backward students for IIT-JEE, the entrance examination for the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).

By 2016, 366 out of the 420 had made it to the Indian Institutes of Technology IITs and Discovery Channel showcased his work in a documentary.

His father was a clerk in the postal department of India.

His father could not afford private schooling for his children, and Anand attended a Hindi medium government school, where he developed his deep interest in Mathematics.

During graduation, Kumar submitted papers on Number Theory, which were published in Mathematical Spectrum and The Mathematical Gazette.

He worked hard and dreamed of getting into one of the world’s best university “Cambridge”. And one day he got it, admission to Cambridge.

But …Very soon he realized that his father couldn’t afford his education at Cambridge. He and his father searched helplessly for a sponsor all over India but nobody came up.

And one day his family’s only breadwinner: his father died and his last hope of getting good education diminished. He gave up the dream of Cambridge and came back to his home in Patna, Bihar.

He would work on Mathematics during the day and would sell papads in evenings with his mother, who had started a small business from home, to support her family. He also tutored students in maths to earn extra money.

Then in early 2000, when a poor student came to him seeking coaching for IIT-JEE, who couldn’t afford the annual admission fee due to poverty, Kumar was motivated to start the Super 30 program in 2003, for which he is now well-known.

Every year in August, since 2003, the Ramanujan School of Mathematics, now a trust, holds a competitive test to select 30 students for the ‘Super 30’ scheme.

About 4,000 to 5,000 students appear at the test, and eventually he takes thirty intelligent students from economically backward sections which included beggars, hawkers, auto-driver’s children, tutors them, and provides study materials and lodging for a year.

He prepares them for the Joint Entrance Examination for the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT). His mother, Jayanti Devi, cooks for the students, and his brother Pranav Kumar takes care of the management.

Anand Kumar has no financial support for Super 30 from any government as well as private sectors, and manages on the tuition fee he earns from the Ramanujam Institute.

Discovery Channel broadcasted a one-hour-long program on Super 30, and half a page has been devoted to Kumar in The New York Times.

Actress and ex-Miss Japan Norika Fujiwara visited Patna to make a documentary on Anand’s initiatives.

Kumar has been featured in programs by the BBC.

He has spoken about his experiences at Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University.

Kumar is in the Limca Book of Records (2009) for his contribution in helping poor students crack IIT-JEE by providing them free coaching.

Time Magazine has selected mathematician Anand Kumar’s school – Super 30 – in the list of Best of Asia 2010.

Anand Kumar was awarded the S. Ramanujan Award for 2010 by the Institute for Research and Documentation in Social Sciences (IRDS) in July 2010.

Super 30 received praise from United States President Barack Obama’s special envoy Rashad Hussain, who termed it the “best” institute in the country.

Newsweek Magazine has taken note of the initiative of mathematician Anand Kumar’s Super 30 and included his school in the list of four most innovative schools in the world.

Anand Kumar has been awarded by top award of Bihar government “Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad Shiksha Puraskar” November 2010.

He was awarded the Prof Yashwantrao Kelkar Yuva Puraskar 2010 price by Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) in Bangalore.

In April 2011, Anand Kumar was selected by Europe’s magazine Focus as “one of the global personalities who have the ability to shape exceptionally talented people.

My Conclusion: Anand is not only a super hero raising another generation of engineers in India, he is my hero and I am greatly humbled and heavily in tears as I happily share this story of this titan of education.

A must read for everyone who wants to use his/her gifts to help others discover themselves.

Culled from Many sources ranging: from Wikipedia, Google, NDTV, and Super30.org.