Friday night was a memorable night for a Maths teacher, Imran Khan who lives with his family in Alwar. Just after midnight, he was awake by a call on his cell phone, due to bad network in the locality of Laxmi Nagar, he came out of his house to take the call from an old friend.
What his friend told him was something that this 37 year old man can’t even think of in his dreams, his friend said, “Prime Minister Narendra Modi mentioned you in his speech while addressing Indian diaspora at Wembley in UK a few minutes ago.” He got three missed calls during the conversation with his friend.
After finishing the phone calls, Imran switched on his laptop and listened to the PM Modi’s complete speech on YouTube, just as he finished watching the video, his friends and well-wishers came to congratulate him. A teacher was acknowledged by the Prime Minister of the country for his contribution in the field of education and it is something which rarely happens in India. The Maths teacher whose Apps helped the students of remote areas in getting educated, is a celebrity now.
When Imran Khan woke up on Saturday, he saw that vans of three news channels are waiting for him outside his house. He was congratulated by the Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union IT Minister himself and the BSNL Head from Alwar visited him with an offer of free broadband connection. This was just the beginning for Imran as there were many other surprises waiting for him on Saturday.
Imran told TOI on phone, “I still can’t believe that Modi Sahab mentioned me in his speech. I am just a normal (ordinary) teacher who loves to teach Maths,” This ordinary teacher is responsible for making 52 mobile applications since 2012 and most important point to be noted is that he doesn’t have any formal education or training in computer science.
As per Imran, till now more than 30 lakh users all over the India have downloaded his apps, he said, “When my younger brother was pursuing engineering, I learned to develop websites from him. I recommended some changes in the government websites that were appreciated by the then Alwar collector Ashutosh Pedneker.”
Imran’s brother went out of the town in search of a job, and Imran got benefitted from his books which contained lessons on how to create mobile apps, after reading books for six months he decided to create an app, however till then he himself was not using a smartphone.
Since then this Grade-III teacher of Government senior secondary Sanskrit school has made many apps for students from rural and remote areas, he also attended National Conference of Union HRD ministry in Vigyan Bhavan, which took place last year in November. He is the one who created ‘NCERT Science’ and Samaniya Gyan (general knowledge) App.
Now the Rajasthan government has noticed the talent of this teacher and state President of BJP Ashok Parnami has promised Imran Khan of all the help that he requires for his work. He has also been called by the collector of Alwar, Muktanand Agarwal and talked about his future plans.
Imran Khan is third among his four siblings, he belongs to Meo community in Kherada village from Malakeda Tehsil of Alwar.
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