Guest Blog Post – FOUNDER STORY: Making children fall in love with math – by Manan Khurma, Founder and Chairman of Cuemath
A guest blog post for The Edtech Podcast by Manan Khurma, Founder and Chairman of Cuemath | Twitter: @MananKhurma; @Cuemath
During my formative years teaching math, I had a crucial insight which ultimately led to my founding of Cuemath. I realised that students struggled with math because they had not mastered the basic concepts. This did not mean they would completely give up on trying – they could not, as most of them were preparing for important exams. It meant they gave up on the idea of really understanding maths and the logic behind it, not just the type of tasks and formulas they were obliged to solve.
This ‘maths anxiety’ is acquired by many children at an early age, usually in the formative years of school, and it sticks with many of them for their entire lives.
The nature of anxiety – the fear of a detrimental situation’s potential impact on your life to the extent that the fear itself becomes harmful – also applies to math anxiety. This tangible, real-life harm impedes many intelligent children and adults from acquiring many sought-after skills.
Astonishingly, maths anxiety is disconnected from actual talent. When I embarked on my career as a founder of an EdTech company in 2013, I made it my mission to change math teaching at its roots.
Having a background in electronics and communications engineering, I was convinced by the incredible opportunities EdTech can offer to students. The huge transformation towards a more digital society gave me the belief to build a company marrying technology to a new approach in math education. This combination, I hoped, would tackle the learning problems I encountered in my previous career.
Cuemath’s strong belief is that mathematics must be taught and learned as a life skill – and as early as possible. Cuemath’s curriculum and technology correct fundamental flaws caused by traditional math teaching, and which still causes many children to be left behind.
We achieve this at Cuemath by offering live, one-on-one, classes teaching children core math and coding concepts via visual logic, creating deep learning effects. Our afterschool programme complements all the main state curriculums across the world. Our exercises focus on problems applicable to the real world. Everything is geared to help children understand the ‘why’, not just the ‘how’ of maths.
Our curriculum was designed by experts at the University of Cambridge, Harvard University and the Indian Institute of Technology and has been accredited by STEM.org, the leading STEM organization in the US.
Cuemath is now available in over 20 countries worldwide and is still growing rapidly. Every day, I am excited to see how my ambitions are being fulfilled – fundamentally changing children’s math learning experiences.
Making avoidable math anxiety a thing of the past will have huge benefits for children in their lives. All STEM subjects build on the core of mathematical and logical principles we aim to convey. Commanding a thorough and confident understanding of these core principles will allow children to thrive in the global economy.
I am proud of the impact Cuemath has had on thousands of children, who are now on clear paths to successful and fulfilling lives.
My life goal is to help millions of children fall in love with math. Thanks to Cuemath and the great people working hard at the company, this dream is coming closer to fulfilment every day.
Some fast facts about Cuemath
- Founded in 2013, Cuemath’s curriculum was created by experts from Cambridge University and the Indian Institute of Technology, covering grades K-12 and is certified by STEM.org.
- One of only 30 EdTech companies in the world – and the only Indian EdTech – to secure a partnership with Google for Education.
- Rapidly growing, with over 10,000 teachers, and present in >20 countries, including the UK, North America and the Middle East, with over 200,000 students.
- To help solve education inequality globally, Cuemath recently announced it would make its curriculum free for the year: https://www.bloomberg.
com/news/articles/2021-09-07/ google-backed-edtech-firm- bets-on-free-math-courses-to- add-users
About Manan Khurma
Manan Khurma is the Founder & Chairman at Cuemath. He started his career in 2007 as the founder of Locus Education where he worked on creating Math learning programs and trained over ten thousand students preparing for the IIT-JEE entrance exam. Manan founded Cuemath in 2013 with the objective of reimagining math education for young kids with a strong belief that mathematics must be taught and learnt as a life skill and not just another academic subject. He holds a bachelor’s degree in B.Tech, Electronics and Communications Engineering from IIT, Delhi. Manan’s passion for mathematics reflects in his everyday life where he chooses to spend time on building math content and programs apart from regular training, during his free time.
