She continues to thrill her audiences with her agile mind using mathematics as her guiding light. She has never been to any university or institutions of higher learning, yet her capacity to solve any mathematical problems is unbelievable. One would think that she is the incarnation of the Hindu goddess of learning, Mother Saraswati. This she did with excellence as she had everyone in awe at the Mahatma Gandhi Cultural Centre, Caroni last Sunday. She is Shakunatala Devi, who has won world-wide recognition and awards and testimonies as the human computer. She has met with some of the world's top statesmen and leaders in all aspects of life. Some of them include former South African president Nelson Mandella; former Indian president Abdul Kalam; India's movie king, Shah Ruk Khan; US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton; and US billionaire, Donald Trump, just to name a few. Indian High Commissioner, Shri Malay Mishra and M M Sharma, director of the centre were among those in attendance. She teased Mishra to give her a cube root problem-106771875-he scripted on a small piece of paper. And as he handed her the problem she responded with 475 as the answer.
On Monday she had some 80 students at a seminar at the Normandie Hotel, and has planned a few more seminars before she leaves for India by month's end. Devi is an international genius and calculating prodigy from Bangalore, India. And because of her exceptional and mind-boggling talent, she has been nicknamed, the human computer. In two or three seconds, she will solve up to any mathematical problem without any mechanical aid. She was born in Bangalore, India in 1939, and started manifesting an extraordinary love for numbers by the tender age of three, and had become an expert in complex arithmetic by age five.
Devi has been stunning a global audience with her uncanny skill in computing and solving intricate problems mentally, even faster that today's fastest computers. Apparently, today's computers are no match or challenge to her arithmetical calculations, as she responds with lightening rapidity and scientific precision.
She has appeared in numerous television and radio shows, and interviewed in some of the major newspapers worldwide.
Devi is adept at solving arithmetical problems, including functions of addition, multiplication, division, calculating square and cube roots, along with complex algorithms and Vedic Maths. Amongst her numerous feats, the most outstanding ones that fetched her name in the 1995 Guinness Book of World Records, and has interfaced with students and faculties, conducted workshops and shows at a large number of universities around the globe including, Princeton, Stanford, Columbia, MIT, UCLA ; McGillin Canada; King's College, London and Tokyo University. Her mathematical brilliance has brought her numerous awards, fame and acclaim worldwide. She was accorded the Most Distinguished Woman of the Year in the Philippines in 1969, and was conferred the prestigious Ramaujan Mathematical Genius Award in Washington DC in 1988. She has authored numerous books and papers which include, Figuring-The Joy of Numbers and, Awaken the Genius In Your Child. She also heads the Shakuntala Devis Educational Foundation Public Trust in her hometown.