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Grace Olugbodi:Turning maths into fun games

By Diamond Woman
06 August 2016   |   3:35 am
Ebun Grace Olugbodi specialises in helping children fall in love with mathematics and building their maths confidence. She graduated with a 1st class Honours in BSc Computing from a London University and holds an MSc in Financial Markets.

Personality

Ebun Grace Olugbodi specialises in helping children fall in love with mathematics and building their maths confidence. She graduated with a 1st class Honours in BSc Computing from a London University and holds an MSc in Financial Markets. She worked in Investment Banking as a Java Software programmer for 8 years and then resigned to run her own business 9 years ago. Grace is the creator of BeGenio® and Easy Maths Skills, and the inventor of the BeGenio Maths board game, Race To Infinity®. She was voted #1 in the Women Inspiring Women National Awards twice in the last 3 years (Business category).

She is a Speaker for Inspiring the Future and Inspiring Women, the pioneer of the Tower Hamlets Business Partner’s initiative in Essex and a National Numeracy Challenge Champion. She has also been quoted on NBC, FOX, ABC, and CBS News. She has been featured in the local and national media, in the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) National magazine, Woman Online magazine, online PR websites and other media.Grace has been recently appointed a Trustee of a London University’s SU Board, and also sits on the Finance Committee as Governor of a Primary School.

A co-author of a book that hit #1 BestSeller on Amazon in 7 different categories, Grace is also the author of the forthcoming book “Make Maths Fun” for parents wishing to support their children successfully with maths.Grace’s company creates fun maths board games, runs online courses and LIVE workshops for parents to help their children build more confidence, make maths fun, enjoy maths more, achieve highly and reduce maths anxiety.

Married with two lovely children, Grace’s mission is to turn maths into a game that every child will love to play, reduce maths anxiety and help parents improve their child’s maths skills through fun and play learning.

Earlylife of Grace
Grace was born in Manchester and went to Nigeria with her parents a few years later. She completed a semester at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife and finished with a GPA 4.35 at the end of the first semester, which was the highest in her whole department when she was leaving for London. Her parents were lecturing at the same University. Her dad, now retired, is Dr Emmanuel A Togun, while her mum is Prof (Mrs) Rachel Togun.

Grace won the Maths Prizes in Year 1 and Year 4, and had come 2nd in Year 4 for the Further Maths prize at secondary school. At the age 12, she recited all off by heart, 111 consecutive verses of the Bible to an amazed 5,000-strong audience at the famous Oduduwa Hall of OAU (and later to a number of churches who invited her for recitation). The Chapters she recited are Matthew Chapters 5:1-48, 6:1-34 and 7:1-29 (The “Sermon on the Mount” as contained in the New King James Version), encouraged by an enticing prize from her parents of a watch or money, with an option to choose.

On Her Invention
I help schools and parents to help their children fall in love with mathematics and get rid of maths anxiety. I have been in this arena of applying creative maths methods for the best part of the last 20 years, helping children increase their maths confidence. My mission is to turn maths into a game that children would love to play and help them believe they CAN DO maths. The problem I see is that way too many African children suffer from maths anxiety and have poor maths skills, and the situation is getting worse. Many children: hate maths, don’t see the point in doing it and find it a boring chore and some don’t believe they can get good at maths.

We have others who don’t have truly effective, fun and creative ways of practising. Sadly, many children experience low self-esteem and low self-confidence as a result. In terms of employment, many of the African population looking for jobs on our continent do not have the required education, training, skills and experience that’s required, especially in Maths and its numerous related career fields.

My “make maths fun” games and programs are a perfect antidote to this problem, to catch the generation of tomorrow young. We need to catch them young to change employability prospects in Africa. I created a series of maths board games that make maths fun and programs that motivate children to do maths with stress free, creative, fun and stimulating methods. This game series, BeGenio, will make a difference to how children, and even parents view maths, making children happier and parents worry less. Doing well in maths when I was 10 yrs through my dad’s encouragement and winning the end-of-year school prizes gave me great belief and confidence, and brought offers my way that I could otherwise only have dreamt of. I believe every child and everyone can improve their maths skills. I also believe that talent is overrated – there is no such thing as a “Maths person”. Maths is simply a skill, and any skill just needs deliberate practice to get good at it. I want to make a difference in Africa and impact children globally just as I have done with my children and children in UK schools who have gained maths confidence.”

The first game of my brand, the BeGenio series is out and I already have fantastic testimonials and endorsements from children, teachers and head of maths co-ordinators. Proper education is also key to eliminating poverty. I want to help schools and teachers to raise the standard of education in Africa so that we can offer more quality education. The first game out, Race To Infinity, is targeted at children in Primary schools and Junior Secondary School. These products will also provide more accessible educational solutions for less privileged or poorer families in Nigeria and Africa.

What is unique about the games
BeGenio games are truly fun, very engaging and have excellent play value – a unique attribute that most other maths games don’t have, that keeps children wanting to play over and over again. I have fantastic testimonials from teachers, parents, children, tutors, heads of maths, maths co-ordinators and head teachers. The games focus on the fundamental maths operations in a fun way, fast tricks and shortcuts, the multiplication times table, cover key parts of Primary School Curriculum, and are extensible to make them harder or easier. The first maths game out, Race To Infinity, also helps children develop decision making skills, social skills, problem solving, creative, critical, and analytical thinking skills and special ability.

I want to get the first 10,000 copies of the games into schools in the first year, and then get the board games into the hands of a 1,000,000 children in Africa in five years, to help them love maths, be numerate, attain better maths skills and levels, and contribute positively to building the Nigerian and African economy by making sure the leaders of tomorrow are well equipped with valuable, required skills.

I have developed fun programs around this mission that will positively impact children who are struggling with Mathematics, make maths fun in schools and during homework, and create more jobs. These additional programs will also help children love maths, gain maths confidence, be more numerate, build more opportunities for a successful future and realise their true potential. Our economy will grow by having more numerate, more successful, and resilient people with grit and emotional intelligence.

Specifically, the benefits that BeGenio hopes to bring to Africa are:
• change lives positively
• help economic growth
• help children have more options for a successful future and an even brighter tomorrow
• raise more capable leaders of tomorrow
• equip the next generation with the crucial skills they need to succeed in their careers and run their homes better
• create jobs for Africans
• help to increase the number of capable engineers for the African technology sector
• support building better
• more creative and more effective school teaching and better maths grades
• help build lifelong, self-confidence in African children
• hand parents the knowledge they need to support their children to excel in maths, thereby giving them peace of mind
• give children something strong and worthwhile to compete with in our ever-changing , increasingly competitive, and global world.

In summary, I am on a mission to reach out to more children in Nigeria and Africa who are struggling with Mathematics or just need to be challenged more, and help them love maths through creative methods, gain maths confidence, be more numerate, build even brighter options for a successful future, reach their potential, and make maths fun.

I want to do my part to equip African children and help them become more employable, to improve their globally-recognised employability skills. Nigeria and Africa will be a better place for our citizens to live, contribute positively in and thrive as a result. As part of the Great Business Platforms Trade mission, Grace will be visiting Nigeria again between September and November 2016.

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