Arvind Gupta

Arvind Gupta is an Indian science educator, toy inventor, author, translator and scientist. He received the civilian award Padma Shree from the Indian government on the eve of Republic Day, 2018.

Career A graduate from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (1975 batch), Arvind Kumar Gupta took a year's study leave from TELCO (in 1978) to work with the grassroots village science teaching programme for children in the tribal district of Hoshangabad, Madhya Pradesh called Hoshangabad Science Teaching Programme (HSTP) in Madhya Pradesh. While there, he developed his idea of creating simple toys and educational experiments using locally available materials as well as items usually thrown as trash. These simple toys, he found, fascinated children and Gupta went on to make these as the hallmark of his movement of popularising science.

Arvind Gupta's first book, Matchstick Models and other Science Experiments, was translated into 12 Indian languages by various popular science groups and sold more than half a million copies. Gupta's website holds instructions, including short video clips on YouTube, in a number of languages, for making hundreds of improvised toys, which he makes available freely without copyright restrictions. Gupta draws inspiration from a number of people, including Gautama Buddha, George Washington Carver and his mother.

His popular TED Talk: Turning Trash into Toys for learning gives an insight into his work and philosophy. His talk was among the 10 best TED talks compiled by Sir Ken Robinson and Sugata Mitra's 5 favorite education talks.

Honorary doctorate On 10 December 2024, Arvind Gupta was conferred honorary doctorate D.Sc. degree by Veer Madho Singh Bhandari Uttarakhand Technical University, Dehradun.

Selected awards and recognition He has won several awards for his lifelong efforts at popularizing science and in designing teaching aids for young children. These include: The Padma Shree conferred by the Government of India, (2018). Dr. Narendra Dabholkar Memorial Award by the Maharashtra Foundation (2018). Distinguished Math Teacher's Award, Association of Maths Teachers of India (AMTI) (2016). The Dadhichi Award given by The Education Society, Ambarnath, Maharashtra (2012). Sri Chandrasekarendra Saraswati National Eminence Award conferred by the South Indian Education Society, Mumbai (2010). The TWAS (Third World Academy of Sciences) Regional Prize for Public Understanding and Popularization of Science (2010). Prof. G. D. Parikh Memorial Award, conferred by the M.N. Roy Humanist Center for distinguished contributions in education (2004). The Distinguished Alumnus Award from IIT Kanpur in 2001 National Association for the Blind Award, for designing appropriate teaching aids for pre-school visually impaired children (1991). The inaugural National Award for Science Popularization among Children conferred by the DST, Government of India (1988).