In love with geography

Geetu Vaid

When it comes to following one’s passion age is no bar. This rings true as one meets Akshansh Sharma, who is all of seven years and a student of Class III in St Kabir School in Chandigarh. Behind his boisterous and spunky demeanour is hidden a sharp mind and thirst for knowledge that goes much beyond his age. The boy has a unique penchant for geography and facts related to the subject, so much so that it has eraned him the sobriquet “Atlas Boy”. His tryst with geography and fame started early as besides being featured in a book of records, he has been running his own YouTube channel called Kids Geography for the past two years.

This geography whiz started rattling out the names of capital cities of different countries when he was just three years old and by the time he was five he wanted to share his love with other children and reach out to them through videos. This paved the way for his YouTube channel.

Ask him about his love for places, countries and cities, and pat comes the reply that knowing about different countries excites him. He has already visited over 20 countries and loves to visit monuments and historical places in different cities.

With Covid-19 pandemic restricting all children to their homes, Akshansh used the opportunity to reach out to more and more children. In the past two months he has created over 40 videos on different topics. He has also conducted various online live sessions on different facebook groups. Students from the United Kingdom, Bangladesh, Abu Dhabi, and many other countries have also attended his sessions.

He also started his own facebook page called Kids Geography and now conducts regular online sessions via that.

And this is not all, he does programmes on three channels — Parenting point, Nitro kiddies (Bangalore based companies) and IIW platform (London based). Content is mostly on geography. He conducts live sessions on geography concepts and also runs daily episode of “QUESTION JAR with AKSHANSH” where he asks two questions each day. Those giving the right answers are featured on the platform and one lucky winner each month is awarded a gift hamper from Kids Geography.

What is amazing about his work is that he is not bound by a set script for any of his sessions. “I decide on a topic and then research”, he shares while admitting that this requires 10-11 hours of reading every week. After which he follows free flowing language for his videos.

He may not be very clear about his career or profession right now, but he’s determined to have his name added to some of the renowned record books. Besides being academically bright Akshansh loves to play the guitar and cricket .