The MSO is the most prestigious international competition for games of mental skill and mind sports held every year in London since 1997.
HYDERABAD: While the new film on Shakuntala Devi has got the Indian audience swelling with pride, Hyderabadi math wizard, Neelakantha Bhanu Prakash, 20, won a gold medal for India on August 15 at the Mind Sports Olympics (MSO), London 2020, in establishing that he is the fastest human calculator in the world. “This is the first time India won a gold medal in this event,” exclaims Neelakantha who holds four World Records for being the ‘Fastest Human Calculator in the World’, breaking records which were once held by famous Scott Flansburg and Shakuntala Devi.
The MSO is the most prestigious international competition for games of mental skill and mind sports held every year in London since 1997.The Mental Calculation World Championship’2020 was held on our Independence Day – 15th August 2020 by MSO and the entire event was live-streamed. 29 competitors from 13 countries, aged up to 57 years old took part, with very high levels of ability demonstrated! After multiple rounds, in the finals when Neelakantha Bhanu won with a clear margin of 65 points.
The judges were so surprised that they required him to perform a few extra questions to verify that this was done properly, which in fact it wasAt the age of 20, he stands with not only a plethora of accolades, but a vision to eradicate math phobia which is a prevalent problem across the globe and has been doing his bits of work with the government to change the math-education landscape of the country.
Partners with TS govt to reach out to 1 mn poor studentsNeelakantha’s startup Exploring Infinities has been onboarded as the official math education partner of the Govt. of Telangana and T-SAT for TV broadcasts to resume learning in 1 million+ underprivileged students.To overcome the recent academic hurdle in light of the pandemic, Project: Math in Lockdown is an initiative that is being run by Exploring Infinities. In this role, Bhanu has started recording a Math curriculum lecture series in Telugu, Urdu and Hindi apart from English.
With a recent tie-up as the official Math Education partner with the T-SAT Network and the Government of Telangana, EI led by Bhanu has launched sessions and classes that are reaching out to lakhs of students through Satellite Broadcast on two cable channels – Nipuna and Vidya at 10:30 am and 4:30 pm everyday. The classes can also be accessed over the T-SAT Application on Play Store. The mission of the project is to get children excited about arithmetic and mental math education without being bogged down by the lockdown crisis.
This is a crowdfunded campaign wherein Bhanu and his team are raising a lump sum amount to provide direct access WhatsApp discussion groups with 8,000+underprivileged children from government schools to resume their education even in such trying times. “I used the Covid-19 time to cater to students through live classes and that helped me partner with TS,” he adds.
