I Used to Fail High School Math. Now I’m Co-Founding a Math High School.
Years ago, as a flailing ISC Science student at an Indian high school, my family, teachers, friends, and I unanimously agreed with full consensus, that I would never succeed at anything mathematical or scientific — or maybe anything at all — in my life.
My grades (usually marked on a scale of 100) had plummeted to the mythic single digit territory, I was failing almost every subject (except English, which I crushed lol), and I didn’t seem to have the will nor the ability to alter this reality. If you had told my 15-year-old self that 20 years later I would be involved in setting up a high school that caters to the highest level of mathematics, I would have laughed, then cried, then probably failed another math exam just to prove you wrong.
Yet here we are, 20 years later, co-founding the African Olympiad Academy (AOA)—a math and science focused high school in Rwanda designed to identify and nurture exceptional talent across the continent. It’s an odd journey of how I got here. And yes, for those asking, I still break into hives at the mention of calculus.
Anti-School
Growing up, I loved school. I was a curious, engaged kid in the classroom. Teachers would often boast to my parents about how well I listened, how I connected ideas, how I loved drawing, making things, and working on elaborate class projects. I remember going down rabbit holes of learning when exposed to new topics. Ancient Egypt. Photosynthesis. Pulley Systems. Rivers of India. And then, somewhere in the later parts of middle school, that joy and interest evaporated in front of my eyes as it started to butt heads with The Great Indian School System™ and her frumpy sister, The Great Indian Set of Societal Expectations™. I suddenly found myself despising school, especially mathematics and the sciences, loathing the destiny that was laid out in front of me (becoming an Indian Engineer™), constantly distracted in classrooms (or distracting others), and harbouring an ultimately self-destructive belief that I was just simply “a bad student”.
In the years to follow, during high school, it became a sort of mantra, an excuse, and a core part of my identity. And with the education system’s relentless focus on exam scores and memorisation of the driest subject matter known to man, I was more than happy to reinforce this belief. I started encountering teachers with less patience than before, unwilling to spend time with the kid who didn’t immediately “get it” or who didn’t play along in the charade of ingesting and vomiting out facts and formulas on demand. The message — to me at least — started to become clear: keep up, or keep quiet. Just stop getting in the way of this well-oiled machine that’s been running smoothly for generations.
After managing to scrape by with just enough marks to be awarded a high school graduation certificate, I decided to never think about school again. It was a chapter I would forever close. I was admitted into a design program and I was going to live the rest of my life making cool shit and not thinking about organic chemistry or differential equations or the intricate process of smelting ores to obtain metals. (Why is anyone learning this in high school?)
And then, during the summer holidays before I started college, I stumbled upon Sir Ken Robinson’s (now ultra famous) TED talk “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” It felt like a personal letter to me when I first watched it. Someone finally saw me, and was articulating what I had felt viscerally — that traditional education often squashes precisely the qualities that make learning meaningful. Without knowing it at the time, this profound 20-minute video would change my trajectory as a designer forever.
The Accidental Education Designer
It’s a bit rich to be a graphic design student telling people that you want to “work in Education” or “change the education system” or other sorts of audacious—often vague—claims that a wide-eyed 21-year-old may spew out. Yet, this was a fire in me that I knew I needed to do something about. In every application letter I sent out, and every conversation I had with a stranger, I would tell them about my desire to use design to impact education. What did I mean? No idea. But it wouldn’t stop me from telling people my thoughts on what I would call a “broken system”.
“It’s quite fashionable to say that the education system’s broken. It’s not broken. It’s wonderfully constructed. It’s just that we don’t need it anymore. It’s outdated.” — Dr. Sugata Mitra
Fast forward a few years, and through a series of fortunate events (and potentially some administrative error), I found myself working at IDEO, collaborating with visionaries like Dr. Mitra and with schools big and small. Chalk it up to the incredible power of manifestation! Suddenly, I was immersed in research about progressive education models worldwide. I was having conversations with students, teachers, parents, and experts about what learning could and should look like. I was witnessing firsthand how radically different school could be from what I had experienced.
What struck me most powerfully was seeing how crucial middle and high school years are in forming a person’s identity and self-narrative. These aren’t just years of academic preparation; they’re when young people decide who they are and what they’re capable of. When a child decides “I’m not a math person” or “I’m not creative,” that story often sticks with them for life.
Over the next several years, I would get opportunities to design learning experiences across the globe, each project peeling back another layer of my own educational trauma, revealing new possibilities. One of the most impactful projects I got the chance to work on was to design a school from scratch in Bangkok. The designer in me couldn’t help but see education as the ultimate design challenge — complex, human-centered, and profoundly consequential. I started learning that the fundamental assumptions I had about education were just that — assumptions, not universal truths. A school was nothing but a set of design choices. With the right intention, a school could be totally reimagined.
“Like all systems, systems of oppression, inequality, and inequity are by design. Therefore, they can be redesigned.” — Antionette Carroll
From Designer to (Accidental) Math School Co-Founder
Earlier last year, I was having a chat with a friend, Arun, about a new project he was working on here in Kigali. Arun is a brilliant mathematician, a tech startup co-founder, a fellow dosa lover, and one of the main people behind Rwanda’s Math Olympiad program. In just a few years, he’s developed a community to foster a deep love for mathematics among high schoolers in the country. The programme reaches tens of thousands of students, and selects high-potential students to compete at prestigious events like the Pan-African Mathematics Olympiad (PAMO) and International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO)–arguably one of the most impressive high-school competitions on the planet (problems from the IMO are currently some of the benchmarks used for AI reasoning and problem-solving abilities). Alumni from the Rwanda program have gone on to be awarded full scholarships at top universities around the world. He wanted to scale this model and start a school centred on this high caliber level of math—one that created opportunities for students that no other school on the continent was offering.
I remember telling Arun that I was terrible at math, and that I shouldn’t touch a project like this with a 10-foot pole. He immediately rebutted my statement, pointing out:
“There’s no such thing as being ‘bad at math’. I resent when students believe that about themselves — it’s that they’re never encouraged to sit with problems, to struggle productively, to experience the particular joy that comes from cracking something difficult through persistence.”
Sound familiar? That’s exactly what we do as designers. We face ambiguous problems. We try things that often fail. We iterate. We collaborate. We eventually create something that works, often through a process that feels more like play than work when it’s going well. The math may still be intimidating, but the underlying mindset? It was something I could get behind.
All Hands on Deck
I often openly talk about imposter syndrome, and how it’s a totally normal feeling to have when walking into new spaces and working with new teams. However, I reached new heights of imposter syndrome when sitting in on a math coaching camp for 14–16-year-olds as part of my initial research for AOA. Coaches would present problems to the students (which to me may as well have been written in ancient Sumerian), and these brilliant young people would sit and work on them, sometimes for hours at a time. I distinctly remember feeling like I had the lowest IQ in the room. I’ve never felt more humbled.
Yet, I would remind myself that these environments were not just about the math. The olympiad approach is a vehicle for something much more fundamental — creative problem-solving, hard-work, and the willingness to tackle challenges that initially seem impossible. I was hooked on to the idea that this was one of those crucial pieces missing in present-day education — the time and space to try and fail.
The focus for AOA is clear — identify talented young people from lower-income families across Africa and provide them with a full scholarship program that opens doors to world-class opportunities. It’s about equity, excellence, and the belief that extraordinary talent exists everywhere, even if opportunity doesn’t.
Listen, The Irony Isn’t Lost On Me
I wonder what Mrs. Titus, my high-school math teacher would think of this. I used to be pretty vocal about my disdain for the subject, and probably made her job a lot harder than it needed to be. Now, I’m talking to parents and their children about the importance of a strong mathematical foundation, reasoning skills, and critical thinking abilities.
Perhaps math needs an outsider, one who has experienced its “dark side” to help create something different. Perhaps my struggles have informed my approach to designing educational experiences that don’t crush a child’s self-esteem. This school isn’t about creating high-performing math robots. It’s about building a community that instills the principles that it’s okay to try and fail, to struggle with hard problems, to surprise yourself (and others) with your capabilities, and to develop a deep sense of optimism about the ability to influence and shape the world around you.
At the end of the day, an education like this isn’t about turning everyone into mathematicians, engineers, or even designers. It’s about helping young people discover what they’re capable of and giving them the tools to pursue it with passion and purpose.
And if that means I occasionally have to nod wisely while pretending to understand what non-Euclidean geometry is, well… that’s a small price to pay for being part of something that might just leave a dent in this world.
Learn more about what we’re building with AOA here.
