Mathematician Anand Kumar transformed the heartbreak of his own unfulfilled academic dreams into inspiration for lifting up smart but disadvantaged young students like he once had been. Kumar’s school, “Super 30,” provides not only education but also food and shelter for students in Patna, India with the goal of helping them pass the entrance exam for the Indian Institute of Technology. His program is funded by tuition that more privileged students pay to attend a separate mathematics institute he founded in 1992, and he has received recognition from President Obama’s office and major Western media. With a small staff of only four teachers, Kumar over the past eight years has coached 212 of his 240 students to pass the exam. He says that he has been physically threatened by people who run similar training institutes in Patna, but he forges ahead with his small endeavor and hopes to admit more students in need to his program in the future. (Photo: Anand Kumar teaching his students, courtesy of Super 30.)
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