Patna: Bihar’s maths wizard Anand Kumar, founder of “Super-30”, a free coaching institute which has helped many unprivileged children clear the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology Joint Entrance Examination, is set to motivate students during a four-day mega education conference in the UAE.
Kumar, who will share the platform with former British premier Tony Blair, Nobel laureate Albert Fert and other global greats, has been invited by the UAE’s Higher Colleges of Technology, Abu Dhabi, which is organising a four-day mega conference titled “Education Without Borders”, which starts today.
Around 3,700 students from 129 countries from across the globe will attend the function and benefit from the lectures of the dignitaries invited to the conference. The opening ceremony will be held at the Burj Khalifa, with an adventurous show of Alain Robert, dubbed the French Spiderman.
Kumar will speak about his childhood struggle and the evolution of “Super-30” — an initiative he launched which has helped hundreds of talented students from the unprivileged and poor classes to gain admission into the highly competitive IITs through his free coaching and constant motivation. He will highlight how education can be the biggest tool of social change.
“The prime objective of the conference is to inspire a commitment to use education and technology to design solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges,” Kumar said yesterday, expressing his happiness over being invited to the conference. “It endeavours to engage students and experts from around the world in an active dialogue.”
Ironically, Kumar’s very own life has been full of struggles and “Super-30” had its genesis in his own childhood struggles, which ultimately saw him reject an offer to study in the UK’s Cambridge University owing to financial constraints after the sudden demise of his father. To make ends meet and continue hos studies, his mother prepared snacks which Kumar sold door to door.
In 1994, Kumar formed the Ramanujam School of Mathematics to help poor children study further and in 2002, he started the “Super-30” institute, with free food, free stay and free coaching for 30 poor, talented students selected though rigorous tests.
In the past eight years, the novel initiative of the mathematician has helped a total of 212 students clear the IIT entrance tests while in the last three years, all the 30 students in the annual intake of the centre have made it to the IITs, inviting world-wide acclaim.
“Super-30”, was recently featured by Time magazine as the “best school in Asia”