Ideas change everything

The hidden messages in multiplication

164,882 plays|

Uma Adwani |

TED@UPS

• July 2017

For months Uma Adwani struggled to make a living in a new city, until she was hired to teach a subject she loathed most: math. Growing up Adwani despised the subject, but as she developed lesson plans for her class, she began to fall in love with its magic, poetry and symmetry. In this talk, Adwani shares the secret wisdom she's found hidden in multiplication tables.

Want to use TED Talks in your organization?

Want to use TED Talks in your organization?

For months Uma Adwani struggled to make a living in a new city, until she was hired to teach a subject she loathed most: math. Growing up Adwani despised the subject, but as she developed lesson plans for her class, she began to fall in love with its magic, poetry and symmetry. In this talk, Adwani shares the secret wisdom she's found hidden in multiplication tables.

Want to use TED Talks in your organization?

About the speaker

Uma Adwani

Numbers romantic

Uma Adwani is a billing supervisor at UPS’s global service center in Pune, India. She grew up a math-hater in a small town in India, at one point proposing that she was allergic to numbers. But this all changed when she was assigned to teach math as a primary school teacher in the Indian metropolis of Pune. She discovered something magical in multiplication tables, and her love story with math began.

About TED Institute

Every year, TED works with a group of select companies and foundations to identify internal ideators, inventors, connectors, and creators. Drawing on the same rigorous regimen that has prepared speakers for the TED main stage, TED Institute works closely with each partner, overseeing curation and providing intensive one-on-one talk development to sharpen and fine tune ideas. The culmination is an event produced, recorded, and hosted by TED, generating a growing library of valuable TED Talks that can spur innovation and transform organizations.

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