Super 30

Book excerpt: Anand Kumar, a mathematics prodigy, defied all challenges to set up one of the most successful and innovative teaching initiatives in the world—Super 30. Born in Chandipur Bela, Patna, Anand secured a place in Cambridge University but couldn’t attend because he had no money and sold papads in the evenings instead. He dealt with his own disappointment by setting up an innovative school in 2002 to prepare underprivileged students for the IIT JEE examination. Super 30 has an astonishing success rate and on an average, twenty-seven to twenty-eight of the thirty students crack the exam every year. Stirring and heart-wrenching, this is the extraordinary story of a visionary who has elevated these bright sparks and, through education, given them hope to rise above crippling poverty.