Shakuntala Devi was a word renowned personality, who was fondly known as the Human Computer. She was child portage who showed the sign of brilliance at a very young age of 3 and accomplishments have inspired millions around the world. First time earned a name for herself when she achieved feat of successfully multiplied two randomly selected 13-digit numbers, at Imperial College London, UK, on June 18, 1980.
Guinness World Records honoured Shakuntala Devi with the long-overdue record title for ‘fastest human computation’. Besides being a mathematician was also a motivational speaker and penned down books of different genre such as on homosexuals titled The World of Homosexuals, astrology and cooking.
Records are meant to be broken and this was proved right by 20-yr-old from Hyderabad who broke the ‘Fastest Human Calculator Record’ which was previously held by the likes of Shakuntala Devi and Scott Flansburg. Neelakanta Bhanu Prakash has gone on the earn the tile as the fastest human calculator in the world post winning the first-ever gold medal for India in Mental Calculation World Championship at Mind Sports Olympiad (MSO) was organised in London recently.
He graduated in Maths from St Stephen College, Delhi. Mind Sports Olympiad in London saw 30 participants ranging from the age group of 13amd 50 years from 13 countries such as e UK, Germany, UAE, France, Greece and Lebanon.
Bangalore Mirror has reported that Bhanu has been part IP Abacus program ever since he was five-year-old and finished nine levels of Abacus, a Grand Master program offered by SIP Academy. He has also gone to win he international Abacus Champion ’13 National Abacus Champion 2011 and 2012 respectively.
While interacting with ANI, Prakash was quoted saying “I hold 4 world records and 50 Limca records for being the fastest human calculator in the world. My brain calculates quicker than the speed of a calculator. Breaking these records, once held by Math maestros like Scott Flansburg and Shakuntala Devi, is a matter of national pride. I have done my bit to place India on the global level of mathematics.”
He further added “I won a gold medal for India at the MSO, London 2020 held on August 15. This is the first time that India has won a gold medal. The MSO is the most prestigious international competition for games of mental skill and mind sports which is held in London every year. This is equivalent to any other Olympic event in the realm of physical sports.”
Bhanu Prakash was 65 points ahead of a Lebanese participant and one from the UAE, who won the third position. Prakash was quoted saying “Beating 29 competitors, up to 57 years of age, from 13 countries, I won the gold medal with a clear margin of 65 points. The judges were so spellbound by my speed, that they required me to perform more calculations to confirm my accuracy.”
Bhanu dream is to create VISION Math” labs and reach out to millions of children to make them fall in love with maths and was quoted saying “My vision is to create math labs, reach out to millions of children, under what I call in order to make them start loving math and arithmetic calculations. Three out of every four students who study in the government schools of India have trouble in understanding basic Mathematics. The phobia caused by math and the demotivation is the number two cause for kids opting out of the rural schools in India.”
He further added “For any country to develop and thrive globally, numeracy is as important a skill as literacy is. Under the government’s listed goals, there are a lot of programs which emphasize on increasing the literacy, but as of now, there is no significant program or vision in increasing the mathematical abilities and numeracy which can put us ahead in the global race. Our visionary Prime Minister Narendra Modi should take the lead as I want to initiate and take ‘VISION MATH’ of India ahead. A robust plan like this will put India on the global map of excellence and bring back the old Indian Math Glory.”
He also holds prestigious awards to his names such as Power Multiplication Record’ and ‘The Super Subtraction Record’. Prakash has launched a start-up venture by the name ‘Exploring Infinities’ and vision to make government school students mathematical geniuses.
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