California: Super 30 founder and mathematician Anand Kumar, recently celebrated in a Bollywood biopic, was the keynote speaker at the Foundation For Excellence’s 25th anniversary celebrations. FFE, which offers scholarships to low-income students in India pursuing degrees in medicine or engineering, raised $498,000 during an onstage pledge drive at the event. Ramesh Yadava, executive director of the organization said that with additional pledges from donors the total amount raised as of Sept. 16 was $900,000 with more pledges expected to come in throughout the week.
FFE scholars are supported through their entire four-year undergraduate programs, at a cost of $700 per year, which meets all needs including tuition, board and lodging, and school supplies. Scholars are also offered soft-skills training and mentorship. Since its inception, FFE has distributed more than 57,400 scholarships. Several FFE alumni were at the gala and narrated how the scholarship program had changed their lives.
Anand Kumar received a standing ovation before and after his moving speech. As a young student, Kumar had to travel more than six hours each weekend by train to Banaras Hindu University to read mathematics journals. The young man persisted and began writing articles on number theory, which were published in scholarly journals. Kumar was accepted to Cambridge University, but could not attend due to his family’s low income.
After his father died, Kumar took on the task of supporting his family by helping his mother Jayanti sell home-made papads on the street. He also tutored younger children to earn extra income. In 1992, Kumar founded the Ramanujan School of Mathematics. A decade later - inspired by his student Abhishek Raj who wanted to attend an IIT but had no money for coaching for the entrance exams - Kumar took 30 of his top students and trained them for the IIT-Joint Entrance Examination, one of the most difficult in the world. The students all lived in the family’s modest home, as Kumar’s mother cooked for them and continued to sell papads to keep the enterprise going.
Kumar said that his expectations for the first year were that five of his students would qualify for the IIT: 16 passed that year. In subsequent years, more Super 30 students passed the entrance examination, and, beginning in 2010, the mathematician has managed to get all 30 of his students passed. Kumar is self-funded and accepts no donations. In an interview, Kumar said that his method of teaching is totally different from standard methodology of learning by rote. A mathematical problem can be solved in multiple ways, explained Kumar, adding that he encourages his students to find at least four methods to solving any equation. “We are making them think, rather than just learning,” he said.
Kumar’s students also take dummy IIT entrance exams at least twice a week, so that they are familiar with the test. In 2010, Time Magazine listed the Super-30 program in its Best of Asia list. Kumar has won multiple prizes, including the Ramanujan award by the Institute for Research and Documentation in Social Sciences.
