N Bhanu Prakash wins Mental Calculation World Championship

Twenty-year-old Hyderabadi lad Neelakanta Bhanu Prakash has emerged the fastest human calculator in the world.

A graduate in Math from St Stephen’s College, Delhi, Bhanu Prakash won the first-ever gold for India in the Mental Calculation World Championship at the Mind Sports Olympiad held in London this week. He is the first Indian to win the coveted title.

He competed with 30 participants from 13 countries including the UK, Germany, UAE, France, Greece and Lebanon and reached the top in the first attempt itself. Showing his prowess as a mathematical whiz kid from the age of five itself, Bhanu Prakash had enrolled himself for SIP Abacus programme. He completed nine levels of the Abacus, Grand Master programme offered by SIP Academy. He went on to win the International Abacus Champion ’13 and National Abacus Champion ’11 & ’12. Some of his World Records include “Fastest Human Calculation”, “Power Multiplication Record” and “The Super



Subtraction Record”.

“Records come and go. I do not like personal pride. I want to build a community of mathematicians, human calculators,” he says. The gold medal he won is being shipped to his address.

“More than a cash prize, what it matters is recognition. I am being included in the Global Hall of Fame,” says Bhanu Prakash, whose achievement has come quite as a coincidence at a time when a biopic on another mathematics genius from India, Shakuntala Devi, is making waves on OTT platforms.

Bhanu Prakash has his start-up Exploring Infinities (EI), which is working with the Government of Telangana and through them, with students studying in government schools. EI has reached out to different educational institutions, trained them in speed and cognitive ability development by harnessing infinite potentials of the human brain through gamified learning modules on mobile apps.