After PM Modi's praise, Alwar's Imran Khan on top of the world

JAIPUR: Shortly after Friday midnight, an incessantly ringing cellphone woke-up the Khan family living in Laxmi Nagar locality of Alwar in Rajasthan. Poor network in the area forced 37-year-old Imran Khan to step out of his house to listen to the caller.It sounded unbelievable for Khan when the caller, an old friend, broke the news — "Prime Minister Narendra Modi mentioned you in his speech addressing to Indian diaspora at Wembley in UK a few minutes ago.'To be sure if he had heard right, Khan asked his friend to repeat what he said. By the time the conversation between the two friends got over, Khan had received three 'missed calls' on his phone. The unknown teacher from an Alwar village school had suddenly become a national celebrity. And rightly so, for he had been quietly making education easily accessible to students in remote areas through mobile Apps.The first thing Khan did after attending the phone calls was to open his laptop and listen to PM's speech on YouTube. By the time he was through watching the video, over a dozen of friends and well-wishers had reached his house congratulating him.The celebration lasted for an hour before he went back to bed unaware that he had given a 'Peepli Live' moment for his locality. He woke up on Saturday morning with three OB Vans of news channels knocking at his door and not giving him enough time even to dress up."I still can't believe that Modi Sahab mentioned me in his speech. I am just a normal teacher who loves to teach Maths," Khan told TOI over the phone from his Alwar house amidst back to



back interviews.Khan's story was no less than a pot boiler from the Bollywood. A man who had no background in computers made 52 mobile applications related to education since 2012.He claimed that his mobile Apps were downloaded by over 30 lakh users across the country. When asked how he learnt to make Apps, Khan gave credit to his younger brother who is an engineer. "When my brother was pursuing engineering, I learnt to develop websites from him. I recommended some changes in the government websites that were appreciated by the then district collector of Alwar." Khan's brother left the town in search for a job, leaving behind computers and books that had chapters on developing mobile Apps.Khan's continuous interest and pursuance took him at the next level. He read the books for six months while practicing on the computer. He first decided to make an App in 2012, a time when he was not even using any smartphone. Khan's popular mobile Apps made since then include---NCERT Science, Samaniya Gyan etc. He claimed that all his Apps had reached 3 crore users since 2012.Khan who could have made a fortune from his mobile Apps but decided to devote himself to helping the students in rural areas after listening to HRD minister Smriti Irani during the national conference of IT held at Vigyan Bhavan on November 8.A call from the union minister for communication and information technology, Ravi Shankar Prasad congratulating him, followed by the BSNL head of Alwar visiting his house with a free broadband connection was another surprise that met Khan on Saturday.