Entrepreneurial mum brings ancient counting tool into the digital world to inspire kids’ maths learning
Dr Rashmi Mantri with her son Dhruv
Glasgow mum and entrepreneur has developed the world’s first game-based application to help children learn maths.
Dr Rashmi Mantri hopes her online tool will become the preferred maths learning application for school children.
“I want to make children confident with mathematics,” says Rashmi, who founded the global maths learning business – British Youth International College – after using an abacus to teach her son basic arithmetic.
“Fingers, pebble calculators and computers have been used across history to calculate big numbers – but the abacus is the one device that stands the test of millennia”, she said.
Thought to have been first used by the Babylonians, an ancient Middle Eastern civilization, as early as 2,400 BC, the abacus is known to be highly effective at training the brain to make mathematical calculations involving huge numbers.
“The abacus is an ancient calculation tool that isn’t used much today,” explained Rashmi, who is a computer scientist, academic and software trainer by background. “But it teaches students to do big calculations mentally without the use of any calculator or paper. When my son Dhruv learned maths using an abacus, he could do mathematical calculations even faster than a calculator.”
Rashmi believes her new app is the world’s first games-based abacus maths application. Its brightly coloured graphics and characters are inspired by digital games and designed to engage children in the learning process.
“Children love our games-based interface,” Rashmi said. “Introduction of games based leaning app ensures an immediate appeal and we can always see the wow factor in their eyes. They become happily engaged and enjoy the classes hugely.
“And with the introduction of new games every day, we have seen significant improvement in their timely submission of homework, a factor which is widely acknowledged by teachers, parents and the kids themselves.
“Being a computer science enthusiast, I always wanted to make our unique vision appealing to as many people as possible. My computing background as well as the dislocation caused by Covid-19 helped accelerate completion of our online application, though we started developing the prototype in 2017.
“We believe our app is unique and we have yet to see any other product compete meaningfully with its effectiveness. It encourages child friendly contests and rewards which greatly improve skill with numbers and logical thinking.”
Headquartered in Glasgow, the Supermaths course by British Youth International College was launched by Rashmi in 2015 to help children learn maths. As well as staging regular National Maths Challenges, a recently concluded online Supermaths Olympiad attracted significant numbers of competitors, aged 4 to 14, from all over the world.
BYITC has diversified also into teaching English, programming and cyber security, and offers online courses to thousands of students globally.
The college runs 10 global franchises, including Dubai and Sri Lanka, and has recently launched its first UK franchise in Basingstoke, Hampshire. Further UK franchises are anticipated in the coming months.
Rashmi said International Women’s Day on 8 March was an opportunity to celebrate the huge contribution of women to the world.
She added: “It’s a joy for me to be helping so many young people – while following my passion for computers and learning.”
By the age of 12, Rashmi’s son Dhruv – who has featured on TV shows for his “human calculator” skills – was developing web programming tutorials and giving online cyber security seminars. Now 16, he is pursuing a career in data science and analytics.
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