Imran Khan, a 34-year-old mathematics teacher, who shot into the limelight after Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed him in his Wembley address on Friday for distributing 52 education apps for free, thanked the latter and said that it was a small step taken by him as a teacher.
“It was a small step taken by me as a teacher. It is a big thing for me that our prime minister has praised me,” he said.
Khan, a teacher at a government Sanskrit senior secondary school in Rajasthan, insisted that softwares should be provided in the regional languages if we want to spread the Digital Indian Mission to the rural areas as well.
“As a part of Digital India mission, we should provide tablets, computers and other IT tools to the rural areas. The softwares installed in those gadgets should be available in the regional languages. Many good types of software are available in English but to extend their reach to the villages, they should be provided in regional languages like Hindi, etc as well,” he added.
Earlier, Prime Minister Modi, who was addressing the Indian diaspora at the Wembley Stadium in London, said that he was sure of India’s bright future because his vision of India, was the India of Imran Khan who created and gave education apps for free; and of the sarpanch who had conceived the ‘Selfie with Daughter’. He said there are countless such people in India.
Khan had developed his first app -- the National Council of Educational Research and Training Learn Science -- for the Class 9 students in 2012. Of all the apps he has made so far, general science in Hindi is the top grosser, with around 500,000 downloads.
The teacher has created 42 Android apps, and counting, in just three years. While these apps have been downloaded by 2.5 million users until now, the screen views alone have come up to 18 million.
Khan, who did a two-year basic teacher training course after his senior secondary degree, became a third grade government teacher in 1999. He was posted in Kota for four years, before being transferred to the government school in Jaton Ka Bagh -- just five kilometres from his native village, Khareda, in Malakhera.
